Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s concerns about the Council’s response to a complaint she made about her child’s school. We will not look at complaint handling as a standalone issue and we have no powers to look at complaints about the internal management of schools.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complained to the Council about how the Clerk to the Governing Body at her child’s school had dealt with a complaint. The Council’s Governor Services team has responded. Mrs X is unhappy with the response and the way her complaint has been dealt with.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

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

• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or
• there is another body better placed to consider this complaint, or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

4. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
5. We cannot investigate most complaints about what happens in schools. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5, paragraph 5(2), as amended)
6. It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we are unable to deal with the substantive issue.
7. The courts have said we can decide not to investigate a complaint about any action by an organisation concerning a matter which the law says we cannot investigate. (R (on the application of M) v Commissioner for Local Administration [2006] EHWCC 2847 (Admin))

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How I considered this complaint

8. I considered information provided by the complainant.
9. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

10. We will not start an investigation into Mrs X’s complaint.
11. The law prevents the Ombudsman from looking at most complaints about what happens in schools. The only issue we could therefore look at is the Council’s handling of Mrs X’s complaint. But it is not a good use of our resources to look at complaint handling as a standalone issue when we are not looking at the issue which led to the original complaint. This is the case here. Because the law prevents us from looking at the issues from which the complaint flows, there is no worthwhile outcome we could achieve. An investigation is not therefore appropriate.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint. We will not look at complaint handling in isolation and cannot consider complaints about what happens in schools.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman