Summary: The Council was at fault for its failure to deal properly with safeguarding concerns about Mr B’s children. It has already apologised to Mr B and made improvements to its service. It has now also agreed to make symbolic payments to Mr B and his children to recognise their injustice.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I refer to as Mr B, says he raised safeguarding concerns about the safety of his children. This was because their mother’s (now ex-) partner has a history of domestic violence. He says the Police raised similar concerns. He complains that the Council ignored those concerns.
2. Mr B says the man in question is now in prison for being violent to the children’s mother while they were present. He says they suffered distress from the Council’s failure to protect them. He also says he suffered distress from the Council’s failure to listen to his concerns over a two-year period.
3. Mr B says he wants the Council to properly recognise how it failed his children. He wants this recognition to involve a financial remedy for the children themselves. And he wants the Council to take disciplinary action against officers who were involved in the children’s case.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. 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’. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
5. If we are satisfied with an organisation’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)
6. Under the information sharing agreement between the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman and the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted), we will share this decision with Ofsted.

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How I considered this complaint

7. I considered information from Mr B and the Council.
8. I considered the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance.
9. Mr B and the Council 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

What happened

10. The Council investigated Mr B’s complaint under the formal Children Act 1989 complaints procedure. This included an independent investigation at stage 2 and a review panel at stage 3.
11. The independent investigator found:
• Between July 2020 and July 2022, the Council received 11 safeguarding referrals from professionals about Mr B’s children, including four from the Police. And Mr B contacted the Council eight times.
• No safeguarding assessment took place until August 2022, after the children’s mother’s partner had been arrested.
• The Council did not assess the concerns for Mr B’s children properly.
12. The Council accepted the investigator’s findings and apologised to Mr B. It said, “we should have done more at the time … we should have acted sooner, and completed [an] … Assessment earlier”.
13. The Council also told the investigator that it has introduced a new process for its team which deal with referrals. This now means that, if it receives three referrals about a child in a six-month period, it automatically sends the case to its social work team for further assessment.

The Ombudsman’s guidance on remedies

14. All our remedies aim to put someone back where they would have been without a council’s mistakes. We focus on trying to put things right. We do not punish councils or award ‘damages’ or ‘compensation’ in the way a court might.
15. However, when a council has caused someone a significant injustice, we can ask it to make a small, symbolic payment to recognise the distress or difficulties the person has been through.

My findings

16. As the Council has already accepted it was at fault for its response to the safeguarding concerns, there is little I can add, and I will not reinvestigate the complaint.
17. However, I have considered whether the Council should do anything else to recognise the injustice caused to Mr B and his children, or to ensure similar mistakes do not happen again.
18. The Council’s failure to deal properly with Mr B’s concerns about his children caused him worry and frustration. It has already apologised for this. But, in line with our remedies guidance, it should also make a symbolic payment to recognise his injustice.
19. From the information available in the Council’s complaint documents, it also appears that the Council’s inaction may have placed Mr B’s children at risk of harm. If they witnessed domestic violence then – according to the definition set out in the Children Act 1989 – they may have actually suffered harm.
20. The Council did not cause harm to Mr B’s children, but it may not have done enough to stop it.
21. I do not know how much violence Mr B’s children witnessed over a two-year period. And I cannot speculate whether earlier intervention from the Council would have helped (or whether the outcome would have been any different).
22. Nonetheless, the Council should make separate symbolic payments to each of
    Mr B’s children to recognise their injustice.
23. Although Mr B wants the Council to discipline staff who were involved in his children’s case, I cannot achieve this outcome for him. The Ombudsman is an administrative review body and does not get involved in disciplinary procedures.
24. I also note that the Council says it has introduced a new process which involves always conducting an assessment when it receives three referrals about a child within a six-month period. This appears to address the failings which happened in Mr B’s children’s case, and I do not consider any further recommendations necessary.

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Agreed actions

25. Within six weeks, the Council will:
• Make a payment of £500 to Mr B to recognise the distress he experienced from its failure to act on his concerns about his children.
• Make two further separate payments to Mr B of £1,000 each, on behalf of his two children, to recognise that its failure to act on concerns raised by Mr B and others placed them at risk of harm.
26. The Council will provide us with evidence it has done these things.

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Final decision

27. The Council was at fault for its failure to deal properly with safeguarding concerns about Mr B’s children.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman