Surrey County Council (25 012 204)
Category : Children's care services > Other
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 22 Sep 2025
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about how the Council has dealt with his complaint under the statutory children’s complaints procedure. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault.
The complaint
- Mr X complains about how the Council dealt with his complaint about matters concerning his child, who is subject to a child in need plan.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- 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. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
- We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by the complainant.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- The Council is considering Mr X’s complaint at stage two of the statutory children’s complaints procedure. Mr X told the Council that he had lost trust in the investigator allocated to his complaint and asked for them to be changed. The Council initially refused, but after Mr X refused to engage further, the Council agreed.
- I will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council. It is for the Council and not the Ombudsman to decide how investigators are allocated to complaints and therefore there is no evidence of fault with the Council’s initial decision to refuse Mr X’s request to change investigators.
- The Council will now allocate Mr X’s complaint to a new investigator. We will not consider the issues raised in his complaint until the Council has completed its complaints process.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman