Summary: We will not investigate Miss X's complaint about a social worker's involvement in decisions affecting her and her children in 2022 and 2023. The complaint is late and there is no good reason for us to consider it now.

The complaint

1. Miss X complains a social worker acted improperly in 2022 and made decisions which negatively affected her and her children. She also complains that, during court proceedings in 2023, the social worker supported the children's father, referred to past mistakes she had made, recommended she have only limited contact with her children. Miss X says her former partner has since been arrested and the Council failed to carry out appropriate checks.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
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))

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
7. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

8. The events Miss X complains about happened in 2022 and 2023. Miss X says her former partner has since been arrested and believes the Council failed to carry out appropriate checks at the time. However, this does not create a new complaint about Council fault. Rather, it is information Miss X relies on to support her view that decisions made at the time were wrong. I have not seen a good reason why her concerns about those decisions could not have been raised sooner.
9. We will not investigate this complaint because the events happened more than 12 months ago and there is not a good reason for us to exercise discretion and consider the complaint now.
10. Even if we were to exercise discretion, a part of Ms X's complaint concerns the social worker's role in court proceedings in 2023. This includes views expressed to the court and recommendations about contact arrangements. The law prevents us from investigating matters that formed part of court proceedings, including reports, evidence and recommendations presented to the court. Any concerns about these matters could reasonably have been raised during those proceedings. Therefore, we could not investigate these aspects of the complaint in any event.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Miss X's complaint because it is late and there is no good reason for us to consider it now. In addition, we cannot investigate matters that formed part of court proceedings.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman