Summary: We will not investigate this complaint that the Council failed to properly consider complaints about the care of and contact with the complainant’s children, and that it failed to take action agreed during the investigation of the complaint. This is because further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Miss X, complains that the Council failed to properly consider her complaints about the care of and contact with her children, and that it failed to take action agreed during the investigation.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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 further investigation would not lead to a different outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Miss X made a complaint to the Council concerning the period during which two of her children were in foster care. The Council considered the matter under the statutory procedure for complaints about children’s services.
6. There were six separate complaints. Complaints 1 and 2 related to safeguarding complaints Miss X had made, which she said had not been addressed. Complaints 3, 4 and 5 related to arrangements for contact with the children, and Complaint 6 to a visit by one of the children to third parties.
7. Complaints 1 and 2 were upheld at the second stage of the three-stage procedure, and the Council agreed to review and respond to Miss X’s concerns. Although Complaints 1 and 2 were not reconsidered at the final stage, the Stage 3 Review Panel did reiterate the need to review the matters and share the outcome with Miss X.
8. During the Ombudsman’s consideration of Ms X’s complaint, the Council has confirmed that it carried out the review but, as Miss X has complained, it did not share the outcome with her. To address this failure on its part, it will apologise to her and share the outcome of the review with her verbally and in writing. This is a reasonable remedy for the injustice caused to Miss X by the Council’s failure to take the action it agreed, and investigation by the Ombudsman would achieve nothing more.
9. Complaints 3 to 6 were not upheld. Miss X disagrees with this outcome, but the evidence shows that they were properly considered. The decision not to uphold them is defensible, and there is no evidence of fault in the way it was made. Without such fault, the Ombudsman cannot criticise the decision, or intervene to substitute an alternative view.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman