Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about Mr X’s experience with the Council’s domestic abuse service. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault and we could not add to the Council’s investigation.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council’s domestic abuse service failed to support him properly. He said the service wrongly refused to change his allocated support worker and when he complained, the Council failed to make reasonable adjustments for him. Mr X said the Council’s actions caused him significant distress.

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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, or
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

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

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by Mr X and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Mr X approached the Council’s domestic abuse service for support in 2025. The service offered to carry out a risk assessment with him, signposted him to specialist services and allocated him a support worker.
6. Mr X asked for his support worker to be changed. He said they had worked with him previously and had upset him. The service said it was not its policy to change support workers at a client’s request unless there was a good reason, such as a conflict of interest and it did not consider Mr X had a good reason to be allocated a different member of staff.
7. Mr X complained to the Council about this. The Council interviewed staff and reviewed case records as well as its relevant policy. It concluded there was no evidence Mr X had received a different standard of service to any other person. However, it noted its published policy could be clearer around its criteria for changing support worker at a client’s request, so it had now updated this.
8. The Council recognised it did not properly consider Mr X’s request for reasonable adjustments during its complaints procedure at stage one and apologised to Mr X for any injustice caused. It said it would raise this with the relevant team to prevent a recurrence of fault. The Council also agreed to Mr X’s reasonable adjustments and put these in place at stage two of the complaints procedure.

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My decision

9. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault in the Council’s decision not to change Mr X’s support worker. Regardless, the Council accepted its policy required a review and made this change. It also accepted it did not previously consider Mr X’s request for reasonable adjustments and apologised to him. It has since then agreed to these adjustments. This was appropriate and what we would expect the Council to do. We could not add to the Council’s investigation.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault and we could not add to the Council’s investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman