Summary: We will not investigate this complaint that the Council made changes to the support in place for two children. This is because further investigation would not add to the investigation carried out by the Council.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complains that the Council has made changes to the support in place for her two children. Mrs X questions the assessment process that led to support for her daughter being removed and questions why she has been restricted from accessing services outside of the Council’s area for her son.

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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 we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation. (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. The Children Act 1989 sets out a three-stage procedure for councils to follow when looking at complaints about children’s social care services. We call this the children’s statutory complaints procedure.
6. The children’s statutory complaints procedure exists to provide children, young people and those acting on their behalf a way to receive a thorough, prompt, and independent response to their concerns. The Council investigated Mrs X’s complaints under this procedure.
7. If a council has investigated something under the statutory children’s complaint process, the Ombudsman would not normally re-investigate the substantive complaints unless we consider the investigation was flawed. This also means the findings made under the statutory process cannot be overturned and will remain.
8. In this case, having reviewed the stage 2 independent persons report, and the stage 3 review panel findings, I am satisfied there is no evidence to suggest the investigations were flawed. Therefore, an investigation is not justified as it would not lead to any further outcomes. The investigations considered relevant information and where fault was not found it fully justified and explained its reasoning. Where fault was been found by the Council it has apologised and taken appropriate steps to prevent the issues from happening again.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because we could not add to the investigation carried out by the Council.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman