Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s actions in the process of seeking the complainant’s daughter’s adoption. The key decisions have been, or will be, considered in court, and our intervention would not lead to a different outcome.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Miss X, complains that the Council has been at fault in the process of seeking her daughter’s adoption.

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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 effect 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 an investigation if we decide the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Miss X’s daughter has been placed for adoption and is in a prospective adoption placement. Miss X says the Council made an adoption plan shortly after her daughter was born.
6. Miss X believes the Council has been at fault throughout the process. She complains that the initial decision to seek adoption was unreasonable, and says the Council failed to work with her and her family to identify alternatives to adoption. She further complains that the Council has failed to follow its own policies. She regards its treatment of her as inhumane.
7. The Ombudsman will not investigate Miss X’s complaint. The correspondence she and the Council have provided shows that the Court decided to make a Care and Placement Order. This places the matter outside the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. We cannot consider it, or matters relating to it, by law. When the Court decides whether to grant the final Adoption order, Miss X will be able to set out her disagreement with the Council’s position and ask the Court not to grant the Order. That is her recourse and the Ombudsman cannot intervene.
8. There is no evidence of fault in the way the Council has applied its policies and procedures. In any case, investigation of such fault would not lead to a different outcome. Our intervention is not therefore warranted.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because it concerns matters which have been, or will be, considered in court.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman