des the registration authority with the powers to regulate and inspect local authority adoption and fostering services. This gives the registration authority powers to require a local authority adoption agency to disclose any information relating to an inspection of its adoption service.  To the Commission for Local Administration in England, for the purposes of any investigation conducted in accordance with Part 3 of that Act, subject to the provisions of section 29(7) and 32(3) of the Local Government Act 1974 (the 1974 Act) (investigations and disclosure). This regulation applies where the Local Government Ombudsman is investigating a complaint involving a local authority adoption agency and needs access to information from the agency’s case records in order to do so. The Ombudsman has no power to investigate the activities of a VAA. But where a VAA has provided, for example, a prospective adopter’s case record to a local authority in an inter-agency placement, this will be placed on the record set up by the local authority under AAR 31.8 and thus subject to disclosure to the Local Government Ombudsman. A local authority may refuse to disclose certain information to the Ombudsman where the authority would not be required to disclose it to the High Court (see section 29(7) of the 1974 Act). A local authority may also seek to serve a statutory notice on the Ombudsman under section 32(3) of the 1974 Act. Such a notice would preclude the Ombudsman from disclosing to anyone else any information that has been disclosed to him during the course of an investigation.  To any person appointed by the adoption agency for the purposes of the consideration by the agency of any representations (including complaints). 114 Sections 26(3) and 26(3B) of the Children Act 1989 (the 198