Decision Report 201702982

Summary

Mr C complained about the way the council handled complaints he had made.

Firstly, Mr C complained that the council unreasonably refused to investigate his complaints about a member of staff regarding the treatment of his son at school and the way this had been investigated. We identified that the council had already undertaken a number of investigations in relation to matters concerning Mr C's son's treatment at school and the way in which subsequent investigations were dealt with. This had included some investigation of the member of staff Mr C had specific concerns about. We considered the council's refusal to investigate Mr C's complaints further to be reasonable. We did not uphold this aspect of Mr C's complaint.

Mr C also complained that, when the council contacted him to tell him that they would not be investigating his complaints, they said that they had 'comprehensively' scrutinised his complaints about his son's treatment at school, and the subsequent investigations. Mr C complained that this unreasonably implied that his complaints about the staff member had already been comprehensively scrutinised, and that this was not the case. We considered that the council were referring to matters more broadly, noting that the matters that they said had been comprehensively scrutinised encompassed some of Mr C's concerns about the member of staff. We did not uphold this aspect of Mr C's complaint.

Lastly, Mr C complained that what he considered to be the false implication above had been broadcast by the council to a number of parties in response to an email from him which he had copied to a distribution list. Given that we had not upheld the second complaint above, and had not found that what the council had said was unreasonable, it followed that we also did not uphold this aspect of Mr C's complaint.