The same closed road, in social care
A family complained about a London council’s children’s social care. Every route outside a court closed, in the institutions’ own words. The only route left runs on rule 1.1.
“anything relating to legal proceedings or court action is not within the scope of our role and powers”
Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, 6 June 2023
The road the system points to
When a council gets something wrong, there is a road you are told to take. Complain to the council. If that fails, go to its second stage. If that fails, go to the ombudsman. It is free, and for most people it is the only road they can afford.
How it closed, in their own words
20 September 2018. The council answered six complaints at stage one. None was upheld.
20 March 2019. The council’s legal department wrote that “many of the claims alleged would now be out of time”.
1 April 2020. Stage two: “I am unable to uphold your complaint.”
28 May 2020. The ombudsman would not investigate. It said the complaint was “made late”, more than twelve months after the events, and that the delay was the result of the family’s own actions and not the council’s fault. It also said that part of what the family asked for “is not a finding that we could make: the matter would need to be addressed by a court.”
6 June 2023. The ombudsman again. It had “previously considered and decided the substantive matter”, and “anything relating to legal proceedings or court action is not within the scope of our role and powers”.
Three gates, one road
That is the same road as the bank customer’s on the two roads chart, and it shuts the same three ways. By time: twelve months, and the road closes. By scope: the ombudsman investigates maladministration and nothing else. Part of what this family asked for lay outside that, and the ombudsman said so: it belonged to a court. By court: once legal proceedings are in view, the ombudsman steps back. Two ombudsmen, two sectors, one shape.
The route that looks like a complaint, and is not
In October 2019 the family asked their Member of Parliament to write to the council. He did, twice, and a director replied and a meeting was arranged. That felt like escalation. It was not. Correspondence from a Member of Parliament is normally logged by a council as a member enquiry, with its own response times, and a member enquiry is a different thing from a complaint. It does not open a stage of the statutory complaints procedure. It does not produce a decision that can be taken to the ombudsman. And it does not stop the twelve month clock that the ombudsman later applied.
A route that answers you is not the same as a route that decides your complaint. The family used the route most people would use, and the time kept running while they used it.
Two stories, one axis, the same marks. Social care: the hollow marks are the family’s complaint in August 2018 and the council’s apology in March 2023. The dark marks are the council’s three answers. The red marks are the ombudsman closing the door, in 2020 and again in 2023. The grey stretch is the 1,036 days between the ombudsman’s decision and the apology. Banking: the marks are the hearings held, the first hearing adjourned by the pandemic, the two trial dates lost and the two long stretches, from the banking case.
What that does and does not mean
None of those decisions says the family was right, and this campaign does not say so either. A body deciding that it cannot act is not a body deciding the complaint, in either direction. What the sequence shows is narrower and harder: the road ran out, and the ombudsman itself named the only room left.
The council apologised
On 30 March 2023 a senior manager in the council’s children’s social care wrote to the family: “I would like to offer my personal apologies to you and your family that your experiences of children’s social care and some of the processes have caused long term emotional distress and for this I am very sorry.”
The council is the London Borough of Bexley. Nobody else is named on this page.
The documents
The ombudsman’s two letters and the council’s apology, with the family’s names and address and the names of officers removed, and every date, reference and role kept. Seven pages.
Download the social care pack PDF, 1 MB, opens in a new tab.
What the council recorded in its own case system, obtained by asking for the information it held, is set out on what their own records show.
The rule at the end of the road
Every civil case in England and Wales is run under one rule, rule 1.1 of the Civil Procedure Rules. It tells the court to deal with cases justly and at proportionate cost
. Cost is in that sentence. Fairly is not. This campaign calls it the optional fairness rule.
A family whose free road has closed arrives in the one place where the rule that overrides all the others does not name fairness.
Nobody in this account had to behave badly for that to happen. Why this has to change sets out how one sentence produces it, and why one word closes the gap.
Add one word
One rule, one word, no new law. Put your name to it, or draft your letter to the committee in two minutes.
Notes. No individual is named on this page. The family are not identified and their account of events is not published here. The ombudsman’s decision uses false names and is quoted from the family’s copy. The documents behind every date above are held by the campaign and can be shown to a journalist on terms. Every statement on this page was sent to the London Borough of Bexley before publication, and any reply it makes will be published here. This campaign is not connected to any political party and does not support or oppose any party or candidate. It is not connected with the Civil Procedure Rule Committee. Nothing on this page is legal advice.