Summary: We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint about the Council wrongly telling a hospital she had drunk alcohol during her pregnancy and disregarding her parental rights. There is another agency better placed than us to consider a complaint of data inaccuracy, and a medical diagnosis of foetal alcohol spectrum disorder is a medical matter for a hospital, not the Council. Any injustice would also be largely related to the effect of the diagnosis on Miss X’s right to care for her child. This is a matter where she has a right to go to court it would be reasonable to use to seek any variations she desires in arrangements already ordered by a court.

The complaint

1. Miss X said the Council disregarded her parental rights and excluded her from meetings about her child and a medical assessment. She said the Council wrongly told a hospital she had drunk alcohol during pregnancy, and this led to an incorrect diagnosis of foetal alcohol spectrum disorder for her child. She said the Council had misrepresented her parenting and her character. She wanted the records corrected and to pursue a claim of professional negligence.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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:

• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants, or
• there is another body better placed to consider this complaint, or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B)

3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
4. 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

5. I considered information provided by the complainant.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. Miss X’s child has not lived under her care for several years, since the child was a few months old. The issue giving rise to the complaint is a recent medical diagnosis of foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD).
8. In correspondence Miss X sent to us, the Council claimed it had evidence to support what it said to a hospital specialist about Miss X’s actions during pregnancy. However, in matters of disputed data accuracy, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has powers to require rectification and to impose penalties that we do not have. The medical diagnosis was and is a matter for the doctor at the hospital.
9. Any injustice flowing from any misrepresentation of the facts by the Council would also relate directly to Miss X’s fitness as a parent. The only context where that would be significant would be in relation to changes to contact or residence arrangements involving Miss X and her child. Those matters could only be resolved by a court, which would need to take a view of the background since the child’s birth as well as more recent events.
10. Complaints about professional negligence are matters for the relevant professional body, in this case Social Work England.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because:

• Other bodies are better placed than us to consider the matter of alleged inaccurate data and the matter of alleged professional negligence;
• The principal injustice from any fault would relate to views of Miss X’s fitness to care for her child, which are matters where she would have a right to go to court it would be reasonable to use; and
• There is not enough potential injustice, separable from the matters above, flowing from the Council’s actions, to warrant our involvement; and
• Investigation by us of the separable matters would be unlikely to lead to any worthwhile outcome, or to the outcome Miss X is seeking.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman