Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council refusing to deal with Mr X’s complaints during court action. Most of the matters he complains of directly concern or are closely connected to matters subject to court proceedings. He has a right to raise those matters in court it would be reasonable to use. Where those matters have already been raised, we cannot investigate them. The separable matter of the timely payment of a travel expense is not likely to have caused sufficient injustice to Mr X to warrant investigation by us of that matter alone.

The complaint

1. Mr X said the Council wrongly refused to accept his complaint, citing ongoing legal proceedings. He said the Council had ignored court deadlines, and declined to allow him to advocate for a vulnerable adult daughter.
2. Mr X’s complaints to the Council also included issues with family contact arrangements and alleged late payment of travel costs.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers.

3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
4. We cannot investigate a complaint about the start of court action or what happened in court. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5/5A, paragraph 1/3, as amended)
5. We have the power to start or end an investigation into a complaint about actions the law allows us to investigate. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we think the issues could reasonably be, or have been mentioned as part of the legal proceedings regarding a closely related matter. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 24A(6) and 34B(8), as amended, section 34(B))
6. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone could take the matter to court. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to go to court. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended)
7. 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 injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

8. The Courts have said that we cannot investigate a complaint about any action by a council, concerning a matter which is itself out of our jurisdiction. (R (on the application of M) v Commissioner for Local Administration [2006] EHWCC 2847 (Admin))
9. It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we are unable to deal with the substantive issue.

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How I considered this complaint

10. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
11. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

12. The correspondence between the parties I have seen shows the complaint is in part about an alleged breach of court-imposed deadlines, with a reference to a delayed assessment. That matter is directly a part of court proceedings, and we cannot investigate it. It would be for the court to decide what action to take. We cannot investigate the Council’s refusal to deal with matters, such as this, that are outside our legal powers.
13. Other matters relate to issues of family contact and advocacy. Those are matters where it would be reasonable for Mr X to raise in court, not least because they are closely connected to decisions about family contact only a court can make. The court is also the correct place to raise concerns about the actions of Council staff dealing with the family. It is thus not a good use of resources for us to investigate how the Council has dealt with Mr X’s complaints about these matters.
14. The only clearly separate matter in Mr X’s complaint to us relates to the alleged late payment of a travel expense claim. At the time he complained to us, the alleged delay would have been about three weeks. Neither the timespan, nor the likely amount involved would on its own create sufficient injustice to warrant investigation by us.

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Final decision

15. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because:

• We cannot investigate matters directly forming part of court action, or the Council’s handling of complaints about them;
• Other matters are closely linked to matters it would be reasonable to mention in court, and it would not be a good use of resources to investigate the Council’s handling of complaints about them; and
• The matter of the alleged late payment of a travel expense claim is unlikely to have created sufficient injustice to warrant investigation by us of that issue alone.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman