Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about a children services assessment as it is unlikely we would achieve a significantly different outcome than already achieved through the Council’s children social care complaints process.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Mr X, says the Council produced an inaccurate child protection assessment and delayed in its production. He says it shared inaccurate information about him to people without his consent. He says this all caused the breakdown of his relationship with his children’s mother and the loss of contact with them.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We normally expect someone to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner if they have a complaint about data protection. However, we may decide to investigate if we think there are good reasons. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
3. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word 'fault' to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe:
• the fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• the injustice is not significant enough to justify the cost of our involvement, or
• it is unlikely we could add to any previous investigation by the Council, or
• it is unlikely further investigation will lead to a different outcome, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants, or
• there is another body better placed to consider this complaint. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered the information Mr X provided with his complaint and the Council’s replies which it provided. I considered Mr X’s comments on a draft version of this decision.

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What I found

5. In May 2019, Mr X committed a criminal offence. He pleaded guilty in June. Because of the nature of the offence, the Council’s children services team had to carry out a child protection assessment on the risk to his children, with whom he lived. Mr X moved out of the family home during this assessment.
6. The Council reached a draft stage of the assessment process in September and Mr X moved back into the family home. In November 2019, the children’s mother, Ms Y, ended her relationship with Mr X and he moved out of the home again.
7. Mr X says the draft assessment contained errors. He says the Council had shown Ms Y the draft assessment. He says the errors within that report were the reason she ended the relationship and would not allow him to have unsupervised contact with their children.
8. Mr X complained to the Council in December 2019. It, in early 2020, provided the final amended assessment to Mr X. It says this corrected all the errors Mr X had notified it of.
9. The law sets out a three stage procedure for councils to follow when looking at complaints about some children’s social care services. At stage two of this procedure, the Council appoints an Investigating Officer and an Independent Person (who is responsible for overseeing the investigation). If a complainant is unhappy with the outcome of the stage two investigation, they can ask for a stage three review. If a council has investigated something under this procedure, we would not normally re-investigate it unless we consider that investigation was flawed. However, we may look at whether a council properly considered the findings and recommendations of the independent investigation.
10. The Council replied at stage two in October 2020 and stage three in December 2020. It accepted the draft assessment had errors in it, but says these were corrected. It accepted it had delayed in producing the final assessment and in the complaint’s procedure. It apologised and offered Mr X £100.

Analysis

11. Mr X says the Council caused his relationship to break up. It will not be possible for our investigation to conclude this is the case with any degree of probability. Ms Y made that decision not the Council.
12. Mr X says he cannot see his children because of the Council’s actions. The Council cannot prevent his contact with his children as it does not have parental responsibility for them. It is open to Mr X to apply to Court for contact.
13. Mr X says the Council gave Ms Y and other family members inaccurate information about him when it circulated the draft assessment. The final assessment has also been circulated without the errors. Given corrections have been made it is unlikely our investigation would achieve a significantly different outcome.
14. Mr X would like staff disciplined. We are not going to be able to achieve this for Mr X. We cannot get involved in personnel matters. Our role is to investigate the actions of the Council as a corporate body, not to hold a single officer accountable. If Mr X has concerns about the professionalism or integrity of an individual social worker, it is reasonable to expect him to report his concerns to their professional body, Social Work England.
15. The children social services complaint procedure has timescales for each stage to be completed by. The Council has gone over the timescales by weeks. Some of this was during the COVID-19 spring 2020 lockdown. The Council says that some delay was due to actively trying to solve the complaint. Given the complaint outcome, it is unlikely we could achieve a significantly different outcome.

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Final decision

16. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because it is unlikely we would achieve a significantly different outcome.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman