London Borough of Bromley (26 004 962)
Category : Children's care services > Other
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 29 Jul 2026
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s children’s services involvement in Ms X’s child’s case. The complaint is about the content of a report written for court. The law prevents us from investigating what happens in court.
The complaint
- Ms X complained the Council wrongly recommended in its Section 7 court report that her child should have unsupervised contact with their other parent. She said the matter has caused significant distress. She wanted the Council to make service improvements.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- 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)
- 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))
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by the complainant.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- 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; and
- the actions of social workers when compiling evidence for those reports, where the alleged impact of their actions is what they presented to the court.
- We already considered a similar complaint from Ms X, however she has more recently complained again to the Council about more recent events.
- We cannot influence the outcome of court proceedings. It is reasonable for Ms X to raise her concerns as part of the proceedings, insofar as they may impact the weight the judge assigns to the Council’s representations.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because the law prevents us investigating what happens as part of court proceedings.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman