London Borough of Havering (26 015 746)
Category : Children's care services > Other
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 14 Sep 2026
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We cannot investigate this complaint about information the Council provided during court proceedings. This is because the law prevents us from investigating complaints about what happened in court.
The complaint
- Miss X complains the Council breached confidentiality by including sensitive personal information in a court report. Miss X also says there was unacceptable delay in the Council responding to her resulting complaint.
- Miss X says this caused distress.
- Miss X wants the Council to apologise, respond to her complaint, provide staff training and provide a symbolic financial remedy to recognise her experience.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
- 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 Miss X.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- We cannot investigate Miss X’s complaint about the content of a court report. The law prevents us from investigating complaints about what happened in court. This includes complaints about the content of court reports.
- We will also not investigate Miss X’s complaint about the Council’s complaint handling. We can decide to use our general discretion not to investigate because we cannot make findings on the substantive matter that lies outside our jurisdiction.
Final decision
- We cannot investigate Miss X’s complaint because the law prevents us from investigating complaints about what happened in court.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman