The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about its response to an allegation made about an incident in a school. There are no good reasons the late complaint rule should not apply.
The complaint
The complainant, whom I shall call Mrs X, says the Council has refused to reply to her complaint.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
We cannot investigate complaints about what happens in schools. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5, paragraph 5(b), as amended) We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council/care provider has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by Mrs X and the Council.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
I considered Mrs X’s comments on a draft version of this decision.
My assessment
Mrs X says that her child, D, made an allegation about a member of school staff following an incident in 2018. Mrs X says the School, and then the Council’s Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO), failed to properly investigate the allegation.
Mrs X, in the Autumn of 2021, complained to the Council. It said the events were too old now to investigate. Mrs X says she was involved in a Tribunal case against the School between November 2019 and June 2020.
We cannot investigate the School’s response to the allegation.
We could investigate the LADO’s role. But we should not because there are no good reasons the late complaint rule should not apply. There is over a year between the end of the Tribunal and Mrs X’s complaint to the Council and more than three years since the events complained of.
Final decision
We should not investigate this complaint. This is because there are no good reasons the late complaint rule should not apply.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman