The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s involvement with the complainant’s family. We cannot consider complaints about decisions taken in court or matters linked to ongoing court proceedings. We cannot say where the complainant’s children should live. The complainant can ask the Council to consider her complaint if there are no ongoing court proceedings.
The complaint
The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Mrs X, complained about the Council’s involvement with her family. Mrs X said her social worker is unprofessional and is unhappy the Council will not provide an alternative. Mrs X is unhappy with the living arrangements for her children.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse effect on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start an investigation if the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended) We cannot investigate a complaint about the start of court action or what happened in court. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5/5A, paragraph 1/3, as amended) 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)
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
We will not start an investigation into Mrs X’s complaint. The Council has previously said it could not investigate a complaint because it was linked to ongoing court proceedings. The same limitation applies to the Ombudsman. We cannot consider matters which are linked to ongoing court proceedings, or those which could reasonably be raised in court. We cannot consider complaints about the preparation, collation, and analysis of evidence for court proceedings. This includes reports written by social workers or the evidence given in court.
It is not our role to say the Council should change a social worker. Mrs X can contact Social Work England as the relevant regulatory body.
We have no powers to change the living arrangements for Mrs X’s children. That is a decision for the courts.
The Council has told Mrs X she can bring her complaint back to it once the court process is complete. That option remains open to Mrs X. If she was unhappy with the Council’s response, she could make a fresh complaint to the Ombudsman. We could then assess her complaint. We would need to decide if there are matters within our jurisdiction which we should consider.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because we cannot consider matters linked to court proceedings. It is not our role to say which social worker should work with Mrs X. We cannot decide the living arrangements for Mrs X’s children. It is open to Mrs X to pursue her complaint with the Council if there are no ongoing court proceedings.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman