Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council (19 016 817)
Category : Education > Special educational needs
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 09 Mar 2020
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Ms X’s complaint about information disclosed at a meeting without her consent. There is not enough direct injustice to Ms X to justify an investigation.
The complaint
- The complainant, whom I shall call Ms X, says the Council should not have disclosed information at a meeting.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word 'fault' to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe:
- the fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
- the injustice is not significant enough to justify the cost of our involvement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
- I considered the information Ms X provided with her complaint and the Council’s replies which it provided. Ms X had the opportunity to comment on a draft version of this decision.
What I found
- Ms X attended a meeting at her child’s school about their special educational needs provision. She says at that meeting the Council disclosed she had been looking at other schools for her child to attend. She says she did not give permission for the Council to disclose this information. She says this led to a deterioration in her relationship with her child’s school. She says it caused her anxiety and stress.
- The Council accepted it did not have permission from Ms X to state the information at the meeting. It apologised.
Analysis
- We will not normally investigate a complaint unless the complainant has suffered serious loss, harm, or distress as a direct result of faults or failures by the Council. In this case, the injustice to Ms X is caused by the school’s reaction rather than the Council’s direct action.
Final decision
- The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because there is not enough direct injustice to Ms X by the Council’s actions to warrant an investigation.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman