West Berkshire Council (22 011 220)
Category : Children's care services > Other
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 12 Jan 2023
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council handled a complaint by Ms X. There is not enough injustice to warrant investigation.
The complaint
- Ms X said the Council exceeded the timescale for dealing with her complaint and that it did not answer all her questions.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- The Ombudsman investigates complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start or may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide:
- any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
- any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
- we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
- further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- The complaint correspondence, including the final response from the Council, indicates the substantive complaint was about the way the Council communicated with Ms X and its effect on accessing provision for her child. We are currently investigating other complaints by Ms X against the Council concerning provision and alternative education for her child Neither the substantive complaint about communication, nor this complaint about how the Council dealt with that substantive complaint about communication, adds anything to those matters.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint about complaint handling because there is not enough injustice separable from that already under investigation in two other complaints to warrant a separate investigation.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman