Summary: The Ombudsman cannot investigate Miss X’s complaints about the Council’s involvement in her contact with her children as a Court decided this. We should not investigate her complaints ancillary to this as there are other bodies better placed.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Miss X, complains about the Council’s children services team’s actions in connection with her contact with her children. She says her complaint is about the Council’s failure to grasp the case which in turn fed into the Court proceedings.

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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 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:
• it is unlikely we could add to any previous investigation by the Council, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants, or
• there is another body better placed to consider this complaint. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
5. 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)
6. The Courts have said that we cannot investigate a complaint about any action by a council, concerning a matter which is itself out of our jurisdiction. (R (on the application of M) v Commissioner for Local Administration [2006] EHWCC 2847 (Admin))

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How I considered this complaint

7. I considered the information Miss X provided with her complaint and the Council’s replies to her which it provided. I considered Miss X’s comments on a draft version of this decision.

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What I found

8. Miss X has two children aged 12 and 9 who live with their father. Miss X has letter only contact. A court decided the children’s care arrangements and Miss X’s contact.
9. Miss X complained in October 2019 to the Council about its children services involvement in her family’s life, including its assessments of her parenting and the children’s care, support for the children, its involvement in contact arrangements and the Council’s officers attitudes and communication with her. She says the Council has not properly replied to her complaint. She says it has not answered all the questions she has.
10. The Council replied to her complaint in October 2019. It ended by saying the Court was the proper forum for deciding contact arrangements.

Analysis

11. We cannot investigate the same issues a Court has decided. This means we cannot look at what contact arrangements are suitable, how they should be implemented or supported.
12. We cannot investigate the preparation, collation, and analysis of evidence, including reports written by social workers or other officers for court proceedings (or the use of a report written previously, in following court proceedings). Nor can we investigate evidence given by council officers in any proceedings.
13. The Data Protection Act gives people the power to ask a public body to ‘rectify’ any document which they think is factually inaccurate. It is suitable for Miss X to use this process for any factual errors she believes are in Council assessments or documents.
14. The rectification process cannot be used for officer’s opinion stated in assessments. It is reasonable to expect Miss X to have told the Court if those opinions are wrong and could affect the Court’s decision. It is unlikely any investigation we do could change those officer’s opinions. Their role includes reaching professional judgments.
15. It would be difficult to investigate the social worker’s actions or manner separately from the contact decisions. Our role is to investigate the actions of the Council as a corporate body, not to hold a single officer accountable. If Miss X has concerns about the professionalism or integrity of an individual social worker, it is reasonable to expect her to report her concerns to their professional body, Social Work England.
16. It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we may not deal with the substantive issue.

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Final decision

17. The Ombudsman will not and cannot investigate this complaint. This is because the Court made the crucial decisions in this case which are at the crux of Miss X’s complaint.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman