Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how a support worker spoke to the complainant and that he had bee discriminated against him due to his age. This is because we could not add to the investigation carried out by the Council.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I will call Mr X, complains that a support worker was unprofessional, hostile, and aggressive towards him and that they discriminated against him because of his age.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Ombudsman investigates 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 may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. The Council runs a workshop to assist 18–24-year-olds to gain employment. Mr X attended the workshop to seek employment advice but says that a support worker denied him entry based on his age and when speaking to him they were unprofessional, aggressive and hostile. He also says on another occasion the support worker tried to prevent him speaking to a third party.
6. During the Council’s investigation into Mr X’s complaint, it spoke to the support worker and other members of staff present and they all said that Mr X was advised that he would need to attend a different site in order to receive advice. None of the members of staff supported Mr X’s complaint about the way the support worker spoke to him. The Council also found no evidence to support Mr X’s complaint about how he was spoken to on the second visit.
7. I will not investigate Mr X’s complaint. This is because I could not add to the investigation carried out by the Council. The Council considered relevant information when investigating Mr X’s complaint. The recollections of the officers differ significantly to Mr X’s. I could not reconcile the conflicting views as I was not privy to the events and conversations.
8. Mr X says by turning him away from the workshop, the Council discriminated him because of his age, in breach of the Equality Act 2010. We cannot decide if an organisation has breached the Equality Act as this can only be done by the courts. But we can make decisions about whether an organisation has properly taken account of an individual’s rights in its treatment of them. In this case the workshop was for people aged 18-24 and because Mr X falls outside of that age range, he was directed to another service that could help him nearby. I therefore do not consider that there is any evidence that the Council did not have regard for the Equality Act when dealing with Mr X’s request for advice.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because we could not add to the investigation carried out by the Council.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman