Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Ms X’s complaint about whether the Council holds inaccurate information about her. It is reasonable to expect Ms X to tell a Court if she thinks the information affects its decision. And the Information Commissioner’s Office is better placed to decide if the information needs changing.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Ms X, says the Council holds inaccurate information about her.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
3. 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)
4. We have the power to start or discontinue an investigation into a complaint within our jurisdiction. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we think the issues could reasonably be, or have been, raised within a court of law. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 24A(6) and 34B(8), as amended)
5. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word 'fault' to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe there is another body better placed to consider this complaint. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
6. We investigate complaints about councils and certain other bodies. We cannot investigate the actions of bodies such as CAFCASS. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 25 and 34(1), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

7. I considered the information Ms X provided with her complaint and the Council’s replied to her. Ms X had the opportunity to comment on a draft version of this decision.

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What I found

8. Ms X says she approached the Council’s children services team for help with contact issues between her child and extended family. She says she later found out the social worker allocated to her case had recorded that the Council became involved due to concerns around her ‘parenting and unnecessary involvement of social services’. Ms X says this is wrong and asked the Council to correct it.
9. Ms X says the Council failed to correct it. She became involved in Court proceedings to sort out the contact issues. The Court appointed CAFCASS to provide a report on the child’s circumstances. Ms X says CAFCASS contacted the Council for its information. Ms X says the Council passed on the same false information and it appeared in CAFCASS’s Court report.

Analysis

10. We cannot investigate the content of a report given to a Court which it later uses to make a decision.
11. We cannot investigate CAFCASS’s actions including how they questioned the information the Council gave them.
12. It is reasonable to expect Ms X to tell the Court of her views on the accuracy of information used in Court, if she thinks it makes a difference to the Court’s judgement.
13. The Data Protection Acts (DPA) provide a procedure for Ms X to apply to the Council to change inaccurate information. This is called the right to rectification. If the Council does not correct inaccurate information Ms X, can ask the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to consider this. As Parliament set up the ICO to consider DPA issues, it is better placed than we are to consider this.

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Final decision

14. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because it is reasonable to expect Ms X to tell the Court if she believes the information she says is inaccurate makes a difference to the Court’s decision and the ICO is better placed to consider if information the Council holds needs changing.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman