Suffolk County Council (23 015 460)
Category : Children's care services > Other
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 15 Feb 2024
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about a children services’ assessment form. It is reasonable to expect Mrs X to get in touch with the officer contact the Council gave her and we are unlikely to achieve more.
The complaint
- The complainant, whom I shall call Mrs X, says the Council produced a flawed assessment form.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- We investigate 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 continue 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
- there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by Mrs X which includes the Council’s response to her.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- Mrs X says the Council introduced an online children’s short break assessment process. She says the form is flawed. She pointed out the problems she had found to the Council at the end of November. The Council replied two weeks later and explained how the process worked. It later gave her an officer’s contact number to call for further help.
- It is reasonable to expect Mrs X to get in touch with the officer contact she has been provided with if she feels her child’s provision is not satisfactory. Our investigation is unlikely to achieve a significantly different outcome.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because we are unlikely to achieve a significantly different outcome.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman