Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s children’s services involvement in Mrs X’s child’s case. The complaint is about the content of reports submitted to court and complaint-handling. The law prevents us from investigating what happens in court, and we will not investigate complaint-handling in isolation.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complained the Council:
• included dishonest and false information in its representations to court, resulting in reduced and supervised contact with her child and impacting their relationship.
• delayed responding to her complaint, which worsened her distress.
• declined to respond to her complaint, wrongly saying the issues should have been raised in court.
2. Mrs X wanted the Council to reply to her complaint, amend its report, apologise, remove the responsible social worker from her child’s case and pay her a financial remedy. She also wanted it to make service improvements.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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)
4. The courts have said we can decide not to investigate a complaint about any action by an organisation concerning a matter which the law says we cannot investigate. (R (on the application of M) v Commissioner for Local Administration [2006] EHWCC 2847 (Admin))

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by the complainant.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. The law expressly prohibits us from investigating what happens as part of court proceedings. This includes the content of reports written for, or used in, court.
8. We cannot influence the outcome of court proceedings. It would have been reasonable for Mrs X to raise her concerns as part of the proceedings, insofar as they may have impacted the weight the judge assigned to the Council’s representations.
9. Mrs X says the Council was wrong not to investigate her complaint as the specific documents her complaint relates to were not discussed, tested or ruled upon in court. It is not proportionate for us to investigate complaint-handling in isolation when we cannot investigate the substantive complaint. We will therefore also not investigate the Council’s complaint-handling.
10. However, in any event Mrs X made clear in her initial complaint to us that the alleged inaccuracies “adversely influenced the court’s judgement” and the judgement was “caused by acceptance of the false information”. While the court’s role was not to decide whether there was fault by the Council, the alleged inaccuracies clearly formed part of the information the court considered. We have no power to investigate Mrs X’s complaint.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because the law prevents us investigating what happens as part of court proceedings.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman