Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Organisation A’s complaint about the Council’s tender process for foster placement services. Organisation A has not suffered any injustice as a direct result of the actions it complains about.

The complaint

1. Organisation A is a national association which represents foster care providers. It complains the Council’s tender process is unfair because the provider which is contracted to provide placement services for the Council will have access to commercially sensitive information.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A (6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered the information provided by Organisation A and the Council’s responses to their complaints.

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What I found

4. Organisation A complains the Council’s tender process for the new “Dynamic Purchasing System” for commissioning children’s external placements is unfair. They say the current provider of the Council’s permanency services has access to commercially sensitive information which will provide it with an unfair advantage in the tender process.
5. The Ombudsman will not normally investigate a complaint unless the complainant has suffered significant personal injustice as a direct result of the actions or inactions of the service provider.
6. This means that we will normally only investigate a complaint where the complainant has suffered serious loss, harm, or distress as a direct result of faults or failures by the service provider. Or where the complainant is not the person/company affected and is complaining about a secondary impact on them, rather than acting on behalf of the person/company directly affected.

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Final decision

I will not investigate this complaint because Organisation A has not suffered any significant injustice. Nor do they have consent to complain to the Ombudsman for any company which alleges it has suffered an injustice because of the Council’s actions.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman