The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: Mr X complains about the Council’s actions after something that happened at his son’s school. I have discontinued my investigation. This is because we cannot investigate what happens in schools and there is no evidence that the Council’s investigation and assessment or complaint handling caused significant injustice to Mr X.
The complaint
The complainant, who I refer to here as Mr X, says his son’s former headteacher abducted his son. The school submitted a child protection referral based on a disclosure it said the child had made. Mr X complains that the Council’s investigation and assessment following this referral were biased against him and failed to properly investigate the school staff’s actions.
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’. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended) We cannot investigate complaints about what happens in schools. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5, paragraph 5(b), as amended) If we are satisfied with a council’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
I spoke to Mr X and considered the complaint correspondence. I shared this draft decision with Mr X and the Council and considered their comments before finalising my decision.
What I found
The school states that Mr X’s son made a disclosure about smacking to a teaching assistant. The school says it sought advice from the Council, which advised it to divert the child’s taxi from going home and bring the child back to school for further questioning. Mr X contests this version of events. He believes the school’s headteacher abducted his child.
Following the school’s referral, the Council decided to carry out a child protection investigation. These are investigations made when an authority suspects a child may be at risk of, or is suffering, significant harm. As a result of the investigation the Council decided to carry out an assessment of the child and his family. The purpose of the assessment was to find out more detail about the child’s needs and any risks posed to him. The Council’s assessment concluded the child was not at risk of harm and that no further action should be taken.
Mr X made a very large volume of complaints to the Council which were investigated at two stages but not upheld. Mr X wanted the complaints escalated to Stage 3 but said he was unable to do this until the Council had released certain information to him which he had requested via the Freedom of Information regime. The Council eventually closed the complaint. Mr X then came to us.
We will not investigate this complaint. Many of the complaints investigated at Stage 2 relate to the school and headteacher’s actions, which are out of our jurisdiction. There is no evidence that the Council’s investigation and assessment caused sufficient personal injustice to Mr X to warrant further investigation.
In response to my draft decision Mr X submitted a list of complaints he felt required investigation, including concerns about the Council’s complaint handling process. While investigation of the Council’s handling of the complaints may find fault, I cannot see sufficient evidence that Mr X suffered significant injustice as a result of this to justify further investigation. Mr X also submitted complaints relating to matters that have been examined by the Information Commissioner and are therefore outside of our jurisdiction.
Final decision
I have discontinued the investigation as the complaints are either outside of our jurisdiction or there is insufficient evidence of personal injustice to justify investigation.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman