Summary: We cannot and will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s children services actions in relation to his family. There are other bodies better placed to consider some aspects. We cannot investigate the Police or a school’s actions. The Council’s actions are too inextricably connected with legal proceedings.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Mr X, complains about the Council’s children services team’s actions before it issued Court proceedings to decide if the Council should care for his three children. He also complains about officers’ actions including their professionalism and alleges data protection breaches.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
3. 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)
4. We cannot investigate complaints about what happens in schools. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5, paragraph 5(b), 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)
6. 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)

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How I considered this complaint

7. I considered the information Mr X provided with his complaint and the Council’s replies to him. I considered Mr X’s comments on a draft version of this decision.

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What I found

Background and summary of complaints

8. Mr X has three children with Mrs X. The Council’s children services team became involved with Mr X’s family because of concerns about the children’s care. It held core group meetings and child protection conferences in 2017. Mr X complains about how these were run and the information provided at them.
9. In March 2018, the Council decided its concerns had reached the threshold where it had to take action to prevent the children coming to significant harm. The Police took the children into care from school under a Police Protection Order (PPO). The children went into foster care. Mr X says this was not justified.
10. The Council issued Court proceedings. It asked the Court to decide who should care for the children. The Court made interim care orders. This means there was enough evidence to concern the Court to justify the children to be in foster care at that point.
11. Mr X says the children remained with foster carers until May 2018. He says the Court made a final order in November 2018 when it issued a Supervision Order. This means the Court agreed the children were likely to suffer significant harm if the order was not made. The Supervision Order ended in November 2019. Mr X then complained to the Council. It said the issues Mr X complained about were too tied up with the Court proceedings to be able to be investigated. It said the court proceedings were clearly justified because the Court had made interim orders.

Analysis

12. It is reasonable to expect Mr X to have complained about the 2017 social work earlier if it is separable from the Court proceedings.
13. Part of Mr X’s complaint is about the school’s action which we cannot investigate.
14. We also cannot investigate the PPO. This includes the decision to remove the children and how that happened.
15. We cannot consider a complaint about events the Court considered. This includes whether the children should have been in foster care, the justification for court proceedings, the information and evidence the Council gave the Court.
16. Mr X says that if the Council had considered the case properly before it issued proceedings in March 2018, then those proceedings would never had happened. We cannot look at this. The Court made interim orders. The Council’s consideration of the case before the Court proceedings started is too inextricably linked to those proceedings.
17. Within his complaint, Mr X made data protection breaches allegations. Parliament set up the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to consider data protection disputes. It is reasonable to expect Mr X to use the ICO for those parts of his complaint as there are complex exemptions for child protection cases.
18. Mr X alleges unprofessionalism and discrimination against specific social workers. Social Work England is the professional body which oversees the registration of social workers and considers complaints that they have acted unprofessionally. Social Work England is better placed to consider these complaints.

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Final decision

19. We will not and cannot investigate this complaint. This is because there are other bodies better placed, we cannot investigate complaints inextricably linked to Court proceedings and those elements before the proceedings which could be separable are too old.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman