Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s report to court in 2021. The law prevents us investigating matters that have been before the courts, and it is not a good use of public funds to investigate the complaints procedure when we cannot investigate the substantive issue.

The complaint

1. Ms X complains about the actions of the Council and another council working on its behalf (Council B), in relation to court proceedings. Her complaints include:
• Lies in a Section 7 report sent to the courts.
• Failure to accurately represent her child's wishes in the report, and failure to protect the child's interests.
• Failure to deal with her complaints, with delays and refusal to consider evidence she provided.
• Failure of Council B to investigate her complaint, instead signposting her to the Council it acted on behalf of.
• Council B wrongly implementing its persistent complainants procedure.
2. Ms X says she has not been affected by these events, but her child has not been appropriately represented. She wants the Council to respond to her complaints properly.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
4. 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)
5. 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))
6. 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)

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How I considered this complaint

7. I considered information provided by the complainant.
8. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

9. The law prevents us from investigating complaints about court proceedings. This includes the content of reports written for court by a council. We cannot therefore investigate the substantive part of Ms X’s complaint.
10. It is also not a good use of public funds to investigate complaints processes when we cannot deal with the substantive matter.
11. In any event, we also could not investigate the complaint because it is about a matter Ms X was aware of in late 2021. She explains she was unaware of the Council’s involvement until more recently as she was firstly complaining to Council B. However, had she raised her complaint with Council B in 2021 she could have contacted us much sooner. She could have brought a complaint about Council B to us within 12 months and we would have identified the complaint should be registered against this Council. There is not a good reason for the delay in bringing the complaint to us.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because the law prevents us from investigating complaints about reports written by councils for court.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman