Summary: Ms X complains the Council has failed to consider her complaints concerning the safeguarding of a child. We will not investigate. This is because the complaint does not meet the tests in our Assessment Code on how we decide which complaints to investigate. We cannot investigate any matters in connection with court proceedings or matters that are currently being considered by the Council. And we will not investigate the remaining aspect of the complaint about the previous social worker’s behaviour as we are unlikely to find evidence of a significant injustice.

The complaint

1. In summary, Ms X raises many issues in relation to her concerns that the Council has failed to properly deal with her concerns raised about the safeguarding of a child and her suffering domestic violence.
2. She says this affected her family relationships and caused problems with the court proceedings. She would like an apology and for the Council to listen to the child in question.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We do not start an investigation if we decide the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
4. 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))
5. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint unless we are satisfied the organisation knows about the complaint and has had an opportunity to investigate and reply. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to notify the organisation of the complaint and give it an opportunity to investigate and reply. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(5), section 34(B)6)
6. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide:

• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

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

My assessment

9. The Council wrote to Ms X recently, advising it cannot consider anything in relation to ongoing court proceedings and past/current court orders.
10. The Council also said it would not look at the complaint about the previous social worker’s behaviour during a meeting. It said this was because Ms X failed to highlight it at as a matter of concern at its stage 2 consideration of her concerns. The Council also confirmed 16 complaint elements that it proposed to investigate.
11. We will not investigate. This is because - as outlined in paragraph four - we have no remit to investigate anything considered in court. And we are unlikely to find there was a significant injustice arising from the previous social worker’s behaviour given Ms X did not raise it at stage two. Finally, we will not investigate as many aspects of the complaint are premature and the Council’s complaints procedure needs to be exhausted before we can intervene.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because we cannot consider complaints connected to matters decided in court. We are unlikely to find evidence of a significant injustice in relation to the previous social worker’s behaviour and also because many of the complaint matters are premature.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman