Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about her child’s exam results because we could not add to any previous investigation by the Council. We will not investigate her complaint about her Subject Access Request because it is reasonable to expect Mrs X to raise the matter with the Information Commissioner’s Office and pursue financial compensation from the court.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complained the Council made errors when marking her child, Y’s, exam papers and failed to adequately correct this. She also complained it failed to respond to her Subject Access Request (SAR).
2. Mrs X said these issues affected Y’s choice of school and caused significant emotional distress to her and her family. She wanted the Council to:
• provide all items requested in her SAR;
• independently verify the exam paper;
• apologise for its alleged failures; and
• provide financial compensation.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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 we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
4. 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)
5. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone could take the matter to court. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to go to court. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
7. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

8. The Council informed Mrs X an error had occurred, meaning Y’s exam paper score was incorrectly recorded. It apologised for the error and confirmed the following actions had been taken:
• a Council officer re-marked Y’s papers by hand;
• a different officer then carried out a second mark to verify the scores;
• it then re-standardised the raw scored using the official calculator provided by the test provider;
• Y’s correct score was added to the database by an officer, then checked for accuracy by a senior officer.
9. The Council identified the error, informed Mrs X, apologised and acted within its power to mitigate the impact and correct the error to the standards of the test provider. Investigation by the Ombudsman would not add to the Councils investigation or achieve any further meaningful outcome, so we will not investigate this matter.
10. Mrs X also complained the Council failed to respond to her SAR.
11. We normally expect someone to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner if they have a complaint about access to information. However, we may decide to investigate if we think there are good reasons.
12. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) holds more powers than the Ombudsman to address complaints about access to information. In this case there is no good reason for us to investigate the matter instead. In absence of a wider complaint we could consider, the ICO is the best placed body to consider the issue.
13. Mrs X is seeking financial compensation as part of the remedy to her complaint. The ICO cannot achieve this. However, an individual may go to court to claim compensation for damage and distress caused by a Council if it has breached the General Data Protection Regulation or Data Protection Act. It is open for Mrs X to pursue this remedy via the court, so this is not in itself a good reason for us to investigate this complaint.

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Final decision

14. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because we could not add to any previous investigation by the Council. The Information Commissioner’s Office is the body best placed to consider part of the complaint, and it is open for her to pursue financial compensation from the court.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman