Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council dealt with a complaint about the care and contact arrangements of the complainants children. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council in how it dealt with the complaint and the matter is subject to court proceedings.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I will call Mr X, complains about how the Council has dealt with matters relating to his contact with his children.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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 there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))
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. The courts have said we can decide not to investigate a complaint about any action by a council concerning a matter which is outside 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

5. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. Mr X complained to the Council about how it has dealt with matters relating to his contact with his children. The Council progressed his complaint to stage two of the statutory complaint’s procedure for children’s complaints, and in October 2022 a statement of complaint was agreed. The Council advised Mr X that it would pause its investigation until court proceedings to decide the care and contact arrangements for his children had concluded.
8. Mr X continued to contact staff at the Council including the Independent Person assigned to his complaint, and the Council considered some of this correspondence to be offensive derogatory and threatening. Mr X also continued to try and change the scope of the investigation into his complaint, raising additional issued. Despite warnings about Mr X’s behaviour, it continued. The Independent Person and Investigating Officer decided to withdraw from investigating Mr X’s complaint, due to his behaviour. The Council decide it would not proceed further with its investigation and also invoked its unreasonable and persistent complainants’ policy and placed restrictions on Mr X’s contact with the Council. It wrote to Mr X explaining these decisions.
9. I will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about how the Council dealt with his complaint. Regulations allow Council’s to suspend investigations into complaints if doing so could prejudice court proceedings. In this case Mr X’s complaints are about the contact and care of his children which are subject to court proceedings therefore the Council’s decision to suspend its investigation in October 2022 was not affected by fault.
10. Whilst the Council’s do have a duty to investigate complaints, it also has a duty to protect its staff from abuse and threats and councils can withdraw complaints if a complainant behaviour makes it no longer possible to proceed. Having considered the reasons the Council gave for terminating Mr X and having reviewed the call and email logs from Mr X, the Council’s decision was fully justified and therefore not affected by fault.
11. I cannot investigate the substantive issues raised in Mr X’s complaints. This is because these relate to the care and contact arrangements of his children. These are matters that are subject to court proceedings which places them out of our jurisdiction.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault and the matters are subject to court proceedings.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman