Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s refusal to accept a complaint about alleged bullying of Mrs X’s child. There is not enough evidence of fault to warrant our further involvement.

The complaint

1. Mrs X said the Council wrongly refused to act to deal with current bullying of her child that originated at Council-run events some two to three years ago.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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 there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating.

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

3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
4. We cannot investigate most complaints about what happens in schools. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5, paragraph 5(2), as amended)
5. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

8. The alleged current bullying of Mrs X’s child is partly a matter for the child’s school. We cannot investigate the school’s actions.
9. It is, however, likely that at least some of the alleged perpetrators are not pupils of the same school. Mrs X says the only point of contact between her child and some of the other children was at Council-run events between two and three years ago. There would be no good reason for us to consider what happened at those events now, but Mrs X is not complaining about that. Instead, she wants the Council to warn parents on a mailing list about the risk of bullying.
10. While the current issues may first have surfaced at the Council-run events, we would be unlikely to find it fault that the Council has declined to act as Mrs X wished. It would be open to Mrs X to report current matters occurring outside school to the police.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council to warrant our further involvement.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman