Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Miss B’s complaint about the Council’s children’s services involvement with her child and with her partner’s children. The complaint lies outside the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction because it is late. Also, we cannot consider matters that have been considered in court proceedings. Data protection complaints are best considered by the Information Commissioner.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Miss B, complains about the Council’s actions in relation to her child and her partner, Mr A’s, children.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
3. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
4. We cannot investigate a complaint about the start of court action or what happened in court. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5/5A, paragraph 1/3, as amended)
5. We normally expect someone to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner if they have a complaint about data protection. However, we may decide to investigate if we think there are good reasons. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered the information Miss B provided in her complaint to this office. I also considered the complaint correspondence which we requested from the Council. I sent Miss B a draft copy of this decision and invited her comments on it.

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What I found

7. Miss B complained to the Council about its actions in relation to her child and her partner, Mr A’s, children. Miss B first complained to the Council about these matters in 2017 and 2018.
8. 
   Miss B complained about:

• A data breach in 2017, when another child’s name was included in a court report for Mr A’s child;
• A data breach in 2018, when a social worker sent documents to the wrong address;
• The content of a report and meeting minutes and a social worker ignoring key information, including evidence of physical and emotional abuse of Mr A’s children;
• The Council’s children’s services involvement with her child.

9. Miss B does not have parental responsibility for Mr A’s children. The Council explained in a complaint response sent in early 2018, that as Mr A had not complained or provided consent for a complaint to be made on his behalf, it could not consider or respond to the parts of Miss B’s complaint which related to Mr A’s children. It said it would accept a complaint from Mr A if he wished to complain.
10. The Council said the allegations made about the abuse of Mr A’s children were considered in the court proceedings.
11. The Council closed Miss B’s son’s case in 2018.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate this complaint. The complaint lies outside the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction because it is late. The law says complaints should be made to the Ombudsman within 12 months of a person first becoming aware of the matter. I see no good reason to exercise discretion to consider this late complaint now.
13. We cannot consider a complaint about the contents of court reports, documents provided in court proceedings or any matters considered in court proceedings. The law prevents us from doing so. We have no discretion to consider this part of the complaint even if it was not late.
14. It is unlikely we would have considered the complaints about data protection issues even if they had been made in time. This is because complaints about data protection issues are best considered by the Information Commissioner rather than the Ombudsman. Where there is another body better placed to consider the complaint, we will exercise discretion not to investigate.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman