Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s actions concerning Mr X’s contact with his children. Doing so would not lead to any worthwhile outcome. This is because we could not make any recommendations concerning contact arrangements. Only a court can order fresh contact arrangements. It would therefore be reasonable for Mr X to use his right to go to court to resolve the matter.

The complaint

1. Mr X said there was over-reach by the Council. He said it took too long to close a case concerning a child protection matter, fabricated matters, and then imposed restrictions on his contact with his children without the agreement of the children’s mother. He said he had not been able to resume contact with his children.
2. Mr X wanted the Council to apologise, accept it had fabricated matters, re-train workers, remove contact restrictions and tell the child’s mother of this.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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:

• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants, or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

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

4. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
5. 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

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

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My assessment

8. While Mr X’s complaint in part concerns the administrative actions of the Council, the key issue is his loss of contact with his children. Among other things, he is wanting contact restrictions removed and his children’s mother told of this. The Council’s position is that the children’s mother has chosen to prevent contact after what was reported by a child.
9. Were we to investigate, we could not make any recommendations about the resumption of contact. All other matters are ancillary to that. Only a court could order contact between Mr X and his children, regardless of whether the continuing lack of contact is the choice of the children’s mother or the Council. It would therefore be reasonable for Mr X to use his right to go to court to re-establish contact with his children.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because only a court could order a resumption of contact with his children. The matters complained of are all closely related to the matter of contact. Therefore, it would be reasonable for Mr X to use his right to go to court to seek renewed contact.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman