Summary: Mr B complained the Council had failed to properly investigate allegations of harm by his granddaughter, Ms G, to his great-grandchildren. He made this complaint also on Ms G’s behalf. He says the Council’s actions have caused the family significant distress. Mr B says the Council has failed to help Ms G re-establish contact with the children even though their adoption broke down. He wants the children returned to Ms G and his rights, as a great-grandparent, to be restored. The main part of the complaint concerns action by the court, which places it outside the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. We cannot deliver the outcomes Mr B wants, in relation to returning the children, so have discontinued the investigation.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Mr B complains on his own and his granddaughter, Ms G’s, behalf. The main part of his complaint is that the Council failed to properly investigate harm caused to one of Ms G’s daughters, H, in 2017. He complains the Council submitted reports to the family court which were flawed, biased against Ms G, overly subjective and that included incorrect information. The result of the court hearing was that H, and her sibling J, were removed from Ms G’s care and placed for adoption. The adoption disrupted and H and J are currently living with their original foster carers.
2. Mr B also said the Council acted with fault by not inviting him or Ms G to Looked After Children reviews, since the adoption order lapsed in November 2019. It did not cooperate when Ms G tried to re-establish contact with H and J. Further, H and J’s extended family had not been able to have contact with the children for over two years. When Ms G gave birth in January 2020, he said she was treated as if she was a danger to the baby and the social worker also told Ms G and her partner they would fail their parenting assessments unless they said Ms G caused harm to H. Mr B said the current social worker would not consider establishing contact between Ms G, H and J.
3. Mr B also complains about the Council’s complaints handling.

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What I have investigated

4. The Ombudsman is not investigating the first or third part of the complaint and is discontinuing the investigation into the second part of the complaint.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

5. 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)
6. 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)
7. 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)
8. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We cannot question whether a council’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
9. 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:

• the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• it is unlikely further investigation will lead to a different outcome, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

10. When considering complaints, if there is a conflict of evidence, we make findings based on the balance of probabilities. This means that we will weigh up the available relevant evidence and base our findings on what we think was more likely to have happened.

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How I considered this complaint

11. I considered the information submitted by Mr B and spoke to him on the telephone. I sent Mr B and the Council a copy of this draft decision and took the comments they made into account before issuing a decision.

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What I found

12. The court decided Ms G’s children, H and J, should be removed from Ms G’s care. The court’s decision puts the matter outside of the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. Ms G would (or could) have been legally represented and would have been able to ask the court to consider other courses of action as well as to express her opinions more generally. We would also expect complainants to come to us within a year of becoming aware of the Council’s actions.
13. In a document he sent to us entitled ‘lgo paper’, Mr B asks the court to “set aside any preconceptions they have and in the best interests of (H and J) consider how best to progress plans for their future”. The Ombudsman cannot achieve this outcome. If Mr B wants the court to take different action, he, or Ms G, need to apply to the court.
14. I understand the criminal trial of Ms G has not yet been concluded. It would not be appropriate for the Council to consider contact until it had. It would not invite Ms G or wider family members to Looked After Children reviews or promote any other contact between her, H and J until then. There is nothing in the court order about contact with the wider family so the Council has not acted with fault for failing to ensure contact.
15. In his complaint to us, Mr B says; “The way in which (Ms G) was portrayed resulted in her being treated as a danger to her son before and after he was born (in January 2020). This resulted in great anguish and embarrassment in the (hospital)”. There is no evidence here of Council fault. The baby is still in Ms G and her partner’s care. On the balance of probabilities, any ‘anguish and embarrassment’, even if caused by the Council’s actions, would have been short-lived. I consider the injustice here is not significant enough to justify our involvement. Also, although Mr B says Ms G and her partner were told; “they would fail their parenting assessments unless they said Ms G caused harm to H”, as Mr B stringently denies Ms G caused ‘harm to H’, this statement is unlikely to have caused any significant injustice. If there were concerns about Ms G and the baby, the Council could have sought a court order. It did not do so. As Ms G has care of the baby, this matter has apparently been resolved. Investigating this further will not achieve a different outcome.
16. At the end of his complaint letter, Mr B highlights the outcomes he wants: “We want (Ms G’s) rights as a parent being speedily returned….We want to see her relationship with (H and J) fully restored in theirs and their mother’s best interests as expeditiously, appropriately and sensitively as possible. We want to see our rights as grandparents, great grandparents and as an extended family, in regard to (H and J) similarly restored”. We cannot achieve any of these outcomes for Mr B because only the court could make such decisions. This is further grounds for me to discontinue my investigation.
17. I am not considering the Council’s complaints handling. This is because I cannot consider the court matters and have not identified fault within the other matters complained of.

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Final decision

18. I have discontinued my investigation and closed the complaint.

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Parts of the complaint that I did not investigate

19. I did not investigate the first part of the complaint, which relates to a court case. This places it outside of the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.
20. I did not investigate the third part of the complaint about the Council’s complaints handling. We are unable to deal with the substantive issues around the court case and are discontinuing the investigation into the other matters.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman