Summary: We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint about the Council sharing her child’s personal information externally without good reasons to do so. The Information Commissioner’s Office is better placed to consider this complaint.

The complaint

1. Miss X complains the Council shared her child’s (Y) personal information about their special educational needs, with a third party, without a good reason to do so.
2. Miss X also complains the Council failed to respond to her complaint about the matter.
3. Miss X says the matter has caused anxiety and distress.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. 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 another body better placed to consider this complaint. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), section 34(B))
5. We normally expect someone to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner if they have a complaint about data protection. However, we may decide to investigate if we think there are good reasons. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
6. We will not usually investigate complaint handling if we are not investigating the rest of the complaint. This is because there is not usually enough injustice to justify us doing so. We collect information about particularly poor complaint handling practice and report this back to organisations. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), section 34B(8))

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

9. Miss X complained about the Council sharing Y’s personal data with a third party, without her permission or any good reasons for doing so.
10. Miss X has a right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Parliament set up the ICO to consider data protection disputes. This includes where a person believes their information has been shared unlawfully.
11. For this reason, we will not investigate this complaint. The ICO is better placed to consider it.
12. As we will not investigate the substantive matters of the complaint, we will not investigate the Council’s handling of the complaint because it is not proportionate to do so.

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Final decision

13. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because the Information Commissioner’s Office is better placed to consider it.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman