Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council dealt with an award for free school meals. This is because there is not significant personal injustice and we could not add anything to the Council’s response.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council asked him to prove he has overnight care of his child. Mr X says the Council discriminated against him because his child’s mother did not have to do this when she applied for the free school meals. Mr X says the discrimination has been stressful and he has had sleepless nights. Mr X further complains the Council wrongly addressed a letter to his child’s mother when it should have been addressed to him. Mr X says this upset the child. Mr X wants the Council to accept and address the gender inequality and compensate him for the stress and upset it has caused.

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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
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organization.

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

3. If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and s34H(1), as amended)
4. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone could take the matter to court. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to go to court. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

7. Mr X contacted the Council to check if his child had properly been granted free school meals. Mr X said the Council wrongly accepted this as a new application for free school meals.
8. Mr X said the child’s mother first applied for the free school meals. When Mr X contacted the Council to check up on it, the Council asked for evidence to show he has overnight care of the child. Mr X said the Council was discriminating against him for being male, because it had not asked the child’s mother for this proof when she first applied.
9. When Mr X complained to the Council, it said it found no evidence of discrimination. It also explained that it needed the documents for audit purposes. It confirmed that a discretionary award had been made for free school meals.
10. We do not investigate all the complaints we receive. In deciding whether to investigate we need to consider various tests. These include the alleged injustice to the person complaining. We only investigate the most serious complaints. I understand Mr X is unhappy that the Council asked for the document. Even if there was fault by the Council for asking Mr X for this information, there is no evidence that it caused Mr X any significant personal injustice and it did not impact his award for free school meals.
11. With regards to the alleged discrimination, we cannot decide if an organisation has breached the Equality Act or discriminated against a person as this can only be done by the courts. However, I am satisfied the Council properly considered Mr X’s concerns about how he was treated and explained why the information was required.
12. The Council accepted fault in relation to a letter being wrongly addressed to his child’s mother. It acknowledged the upset this caused and apologised to Mr X. It explained to Mr X that it took action to make sure this does not happen again. I am satisfied the Council properly dealt with this part of the complaint and it is unlikely an investigation by the Ombudsman would add to this.

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Final decision

13. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is not significant personal injustice and it is unlikely an investigation would add to the Council’s response.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman