Summary: The Council was not at fault for its refusal to consider
Mrs X’s 30-year-old complaint. It properly considered its discretionary powers to consider old complaints and explained its decision to Mrs X. For the same reasons given by the Council, we will also not investigate the complaint.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I refer to as Mrs X, complains that she was not kept safe by the Council as a child from very soon after her birth (in the mid-1980s). She says this led to her being ‘severely abused’. She also believes the Council’s decision-making at the time allowed dangerous adults to mistreat her.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. If we are satisfied with a council’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)
3. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information from Mrs X and the Council. Both had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

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What I found

Complaints

The Children Act 1989 (statutory) complaints procedure

5. The statutory guidance, ‘Getting the best from complaints’, sets out a three-stage procedure for complaints about certain aspects of children’s social care. I refer to this as ‘the statutory procedure’.
6. This procedure applies to complaints from children (and other relevant people) about how councils perform certain functions under the Children Act 1989 and the Adoption and Children Act 2002.
7. A council’s child safeguarding function – which is performed under section 47 of the Children Act – is not covered by the statutory procedure.

The Council’s complaints policy

8. Complaints made 12 months or more after the complaint issue arose will not usually be investigated.
9. In certain circumstances the Council may extend this time limit. This may include when it takes a complainant more than 12 months to find out about an issue.

The Council’s document retention policy

10. The Council will keep child protection case files for 40 years from the date of the child’s birth.

Mrs X’s complaint to the Council

11. Mrs X complained to the Council in May 2024. But it refused to investigate the complaint. It said:
• The statutory procedure has a 12-month limit for making a complaint. But councils have the discretion to extend that limit.
• In exercising discretion to extend the limit, a council must be satisfied that, among other things, there is sufficient access to information or individuals involved at the time to allow an effective and fair investigation.
• Although the Council has located some of Mrs X’s records from the early 1990s, these are too limited to inform a robust and meaningful investigation of events which happened over 30 years ago (it has provided us with a summary of those records).
• With this in mind, the Council would not exercise its discretion to investigate Mrs X’s complaint.

My findings

12. Councils are bound by certain rules when considering how to respond to complaints, although they generally have discretionary powers to disregard some of those rules in some circumstances.
13. It is not my role to tell a council whether it should exercise its discretion or not. But we expect councils to give proper consideration to any discretionary powers they have, and to explain their decision-making.
14. In Mrs X’s case, the Council may have referred to the wrong complaints procedure in its letter to her. This is because complaints about child safeguarding are not necessarily covered by the statutory procedure. The Council’s own complaints procedure was, perhaps, more appropriate.
15. However, it is unlikely that this made any difference to the outcome or caused
    Mrs X an injustice. The time limits in both procedures are the same, and both procedures allow the Council discretion to consider complaints from outside those time limits.
16. The Council considered its discretionary powers (under either procedure) and gave an explanation for its refusal which was not obviously unreasonable in the circumstances. Because of this, I have no reason to find fault with how it responded to Mrs X.
17. Furthermore, having considered applying the Ombudsman’s own discretion to consider complaints from outside our own 12-month time limit, I will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint either.
18. We rely on case records to make decisions, and, if those records are no longer available, it is unlikely I would be able to make such a decision. It is also unlikely that the Council is at fault for the lack of records, as Mrs X complained after the cut-off date for its retention of child protection case files.

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Final decision

19. The Council was not at fault for its refusal to consider Mrs X’s 30-year-old complaint.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman