Royal Borough of Greenwich (21 005 254)
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We ended the investigation of Mr X’s complaint about his son Y being out of school for a year. This is because Mr X has started court proceedings about the same matter.
The complaint
- Mr X complained about Royal Borough of Greenwich (the Council). He said it failed to take action to ensure his son Y had education for more than a year and was not transparent. Mr X said this caused avoidable him and Y distress and meant he had to spend most of his time at home with Y.
- Mr X also complained about:
- delay in communication with him and in the Council’s handling of his complaint and about the subjective wording of one of the complaint responses.
- the Council refusing to escalate his complaint.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- We can decide whether to start or discontinue an investigation into a complaint within our jurisdiction. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 24A(6) and 34B(8), as amended)
- The courts have said that where someone has used their right of appeal, reference or review or remedy by way of proceedings in any court of law, the Ombudsman has no jurisdiction to investigate. This is the case even if the appeal did not or could not provide a complete remedy for all the injustice claimed. (R v The Commissioner for Local Administration ex parte PH (1999) EHCA Civ 916)
- The courts have said we can decide not to investigate a complaint about any action by a council concerning a matter which is outside our jurisdiction. (R (on the application of M) v Commissioner for Local Administration [2006] EHWCC 2847 (Admin))
How I considered this complaint
- I considered Mr X’s complaint to us, the Council’s responses to his complaint and documents in this statement. I discussed the complaint with Mr X
- Mr X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered their comments before making this final decision.
What I found
- Y has special educational needs and has an Education, Health and Care Plan naming a secondary school, School A. School A did not admit Y.
- Mr X used the Council’s complaints procedure. The Council’s two responses said:
- The Council wrote to School A directing it to admit Y and this did not happen because School A was concerned about the level of funding it would receive.
- There were measures to support Y’s transition to School A including repeating a year, because he had missed out on most of Year 10
- It was sorry there was a delay replying to his complaint, there should have been a proper handover of work before an officer left the Council.
- Since complaining to us, Mr X has issued proceedings in the county court against the Council. His claim is for compensation for his son missing school for more than a year. He alleged the Council failed in its statutory duty to place Y in school and he was claiming damages for an infringement of Y’s right to education.
Final decision
- I stopped investigating Mr X’s complaint because he has issued court proceedings about the same or similar matters. This is because of the legal case in paragraph four. Even if the proceedings do not provide Mr X with a complete remedy for the fault and injustice he has complained about, we have no power to continue with an investigation.
- It is not a good use of public resources for us to investigate complaints about breaches of complaint procedures, like delay and poor complaint responses, if we are unable to deal with the substantive issue. The courts have confirmed this principle as I have set out in paragraph five.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman