Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the content of an assessment the Council completed about his children. This is because our intervention would achieve nothing significant.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council has favoured his ex-partner’s accounts over his when completing a child and family assessment of his children. He says the Council has ignored his concerns about his ex-partner’s treatment of their children. He wants the Council to record his ex-partner’s statements are unproven and to ensure other agencies (such as his children’s school) know this.

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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 another body better placed to consider this complaint, or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation. (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 Council has responded to Mr X’s complaints about the content of its assessment of his children. The Council explained it recorded information Mr X’s ex-partner provided to the police about domestic abuse incidents. It also recorded the views of Mr X’s children, one of whom reported witnessing Mr X assaulting their mother/his ex-partner. The Council has confirmed the case for Mr X’s children is closed and it is no longer involved. It has advised Mr X to raise any concerns he has about information reported to the police with that organisation directly.
6. The Ombudsman will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because investigation would not achieve anything significant. It would not be for us to comment on the disputed contents of an assessment report as they reflect the accounts of Mr X’s children and his ex-partner. Where there is an issue of accuracy within a report, the most the Ombudsman would normally seek is for the Council to record the complainant’s dissenting views on the file. Mr X’s views are set out in the complaint correspondence, so this has been achieved.
7. If Mr X believes the assessment report contains false information about him, he may wish to pursue his right to rectification under General Data Protection Regulations. It is open to him to approach the Information Commissioner’s Office, which is better placed than the Ombudsman to consider such matters.

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Final decision

8. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because we would achieve nothing significant by doing so.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman