Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s complaint handling. This is because further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council did not investigate his complaint in full and prematurely closed it.

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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
• 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’s child Y is Looked After by the Council and lives in a residential home, however Mr X maintains parental responsibility.
6. Mr X raised concerns about Y’s low school attendance from summer 2025 and the lack of information provided to him, including that Y was on a reduced timetable. At stage 2 Mr X raised further concerns about Y’s poor attendance over the years, the Council’s failure to involve him or provide him with information, failures in updating Y’s EHCP and that Y’s residential home was failing to support Y.
7. In its complaint responses the Council explained the actions taken by the school to support attendance and confirmed Y was now attending regularly. Regarding the reduced timetable, the Council accepted it neither consulted with Mr X nor recorded reasons why it did not. It confirmed it would ensure to involve him and share relevant documents in future. The Council also accepted it did not invite Mr X to school meetings or send him other documents as it should have done, which it would also rectify going forward. On these matters, further investigation by us would not achieve more. The Council has accepted procedural failings and confirmed action to prevent recurrence.
8. The Council explained complaints about children’s social care, including the actions of the residential home and failures to share information with Mr X, needed to follow the separate statutory children’s complaints process and Mr X would need to raise any other new complaints separately at stage 1.
9. The Council properly directed Mr X to the statutory route for children’s social care complaints. The law says the Council must follow this process and the Council’s complaints policy also confirms this. There is not enough evidence of fault on this point to justify an investigation.
10. The Council told Mr X it could not consider new complaints at stage 2, rather he could raise a new and separate complaint about any matters not covered by the statutory process if needed. The Council did not refuse to consider other matters, rather it explained how Mr X should raise these. Any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman