Summary: The Ombudsman cannot investigate Mr X’s complaint about a failure to submit GCSE predicted grades as this is not a Council role. And the Information Commissioner’s Office is better placed to decide if the Council holds inaccurate information.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Mr X, says the Council failed to put forward his child’s predicted GCSE grades to the exam board, the Council has wrongly said he removed the child from school and has not complied with its complaints’ procedure.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word 'fault' to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe:
• the fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• the injustice is not significant enough to justify the cost of our involvement, or
• there is another body better placed to consider this complaint. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
3. We normally expect someone to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner if they have a complaint about data protection. However, we may decide to investigate if we think there are good reasons. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
4. We cannot investigate complaints about what happens in schools. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5, paragraph 5(b), as amended)
5. The Courts have said that we cannot investigate a complaint about any action by a council, concerning a matter which is itself out of our jurisdiction. (R (on the application of M) v Commissioner for Local Administration [2006] EHWCC 2847 (Admin))

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered the information Mr X provided with his complaint and the Council’s reply which it provided. Mr X had an opportunity to comment on a draft version of this decision.

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What I found

7. Mr X’s complaints and my draft decision on each is as follows:
1. Mr X says his child’s predicted GCSE grades were not provided to the exam boards. The Council says that providing education results is not the responsibility of the local authority.  It is the responsibility of the relevant education setting to do this in discussion with the students and their parents.

We have no power to investigate the relevant education settings decision on this. It is unlikely we would find any Council fault.

2. Mr X says the Council has incorrectly stated that he removed his child from a school. I have seen a letter which shows the Council has said this. There is not enough significant injustice from the Council saying this to justify our investigation. In addition, Parliament set up the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to consider data protection disputes. The Council holding or stating inaccurate information can be data protection breach. It is reasonable to expect Mr X to apply to the ICO particularly as the Council disputes its statement is untrue.
3. Mr X says in replying to his complaint, the Council failed to comply with its own complaint’s procedure. We cannot investigate his complaint about this in relation to the GCSE grades. And it is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we may not deal with the substantive issue, such as the ‘removal from school’ dispute.

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Final decision

8. The Ombudsman will not and cannot investigate this complaint. This is because we cannot investigate the GCSE grades complaint as it is not a Council role and the ICO is better placed to consider if the Council holds inaccurate information about him.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman