Summary: We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint about a children services family assessment. We are unlikely to achieve more than the Council’s offer to place her comments as an annex. We are unlikely to find significant fault in the Council’s decision to suspend a complaint investigation during Court proceedings. The Information Commissioner’s Office is better placed to consider any factual errors in the assessment. We are unlikely to find significant fault or injustice in not telling her when it shared the assessment with a third party.

The complaint

1. Ms X says the Council has failed to reply to her children services complaint.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
3. We normally expect someone to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner if they have a complaint about data protection. However, we may decide to investigate if we think there are good reasons. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
4. 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 not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating; or
• any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained; or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement; or
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation; or
• there is another body better placed to consider this complaint; or
• it would be reasonable for the person to ask for a council review or appeal. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by Ms X which included the Council’s reply to her.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. Ms X says a Council children services social worker visited her home in February 2025 and carried out a child and family assessment. She says she chased the Council for this but did not see the assessment until the end of April. She was unhappy with it. She wrote to the Council the next day with her comments about factual errors, views and information missed out. She says she also asked the Council if and when it had shared the assessment with the other parent.
8. Ms X says the Council told her it would place her comments with the assessment as an annex. She says it has never told her when and if it shared the assessment with the other parent.
9. The Council told Ms X in June it would put a complaint investigation on hold due to ongoing relevant court proceedings. Ms X says she applied for a child arrangement order but believes her complaint can be separated from those proceedings.

Analysis

10. We cannot investigate the preparation and content of any assessment which is later used in Court proceedings.
11. We are unlikely to find fault in the Council’s decision to put on hold a complaint investigation which is about the preparation and content of an assessment which may be used in Court proceedings.
12. If we were to investigate Ms X’s complaint, we are unlikely to achieve more than the Council’s offer to place Ms X’s comments with the assessment.
13. Ms X has the right to request records are ‘rectified’. This means any factual inaccuracies are corrected. If the Council refuses to do so, she can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Parliament set up the ICO to consider data protection disputes which includes ‘right to rectification’ disputes. The ICO are better placed than us to consider if the Council should change its records particularly because there are complex exemptions for children case files.
14. We are unlikely to find any significant fault or injustice in the Council not telling Ms X when it shared an assessment with another person.
15. 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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Final decision

16. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because it is unlikely we will find significant fault or direct injustice on part of it. The ICO is better placed to consider her data protection complaint.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman