Summary: We will not investigate this complaint that the Council falsely claimed the complainant’s children were Children in Need, and that it was at fault in its responses to her subsequent complaint and her Right to Rectification request. This is because there is nothing significant to be gained from investigation.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mrs X, complains that the Council:

• falsely claimed her children were subject to a Child in Need (CiN) plan;
• unreasonably failed to uphold her subsequent complaint at Stages 1 and 2 of the statutory complaint procedure; and
• failed to take appropriate action in response to her Right to Rectification request.

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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 there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation, or there is another body better placed to consider the complaint. (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.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. The evidence Mrs X has provided shows that her children were subject to interim supervision orders for a period during 2021, and were voluntarily accommodated under section 20 of the Children Act 1989. The orders and section 20 accommodation ceased on 9 April 2021. The Council stated that the children became CiN at that point, and that this status existed until 20 April 2021.
6. Mrs X complained to the Council. She contended that the steps necessary to initiate CiN action, including obtaining her consent, and not been taken and that her children had not therefore been CiN, and were not recorded as such. Her complaint to the Council was considered under the statutory procedure for children’s services complaints. Administrative issues relating to the implementation of the statutory process have already been considered by the Ombudsman and will not be revisited.
7. The Ombudsman will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because our intervention would achieve nothing significant. Her complaint has been substantially upheld at Stage 3 of the statutory procedure. The Council has accepted that, as Mrs X contended, it did not take the steps to initiate CiN status.
8. It is not for us to consider why that conclusion was not reached at an earlier stage. Mrs X’s recourse against the failure to do so was precisely to escalate her complaint to the final stage of the procedure. Access to successive levels of scrutiny is the purpose of the statutory procedure, and Mrs X was able to use it to obtain the finding she sought. The Ombudsman would not seek to achieve anything further.
9. Mrs X says the action the Council took in response to her Right to Rectification request was insufficient. That is not something on which we will take a view. The Information Commissioner’s Office is the appropriate body to consider matters relating to the accuracy of records, and is better placed than the Ombudsman to do so. There is no role for us.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because there is nothing significant to be gained by doing so.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman