Summary: There is no fault by Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council in relation to this complaint about the way in which it has handled Mr S’s behaviour and his repeated use of the children’s statutory complaints procedure. Nor is there fault in relation to the complaints Mr S had made about the way in which it has managed concerns he has raised in complaints related to the care provided to his children who are looked after by the Council.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Mr S, complains the Council has failed to provide adequate services to him in relation to his children who are subject to care orders and looked after by the Council. Specifically, he complains the Council:
1. turned his child against him and allowed him no contact with that child for two years;
2. wrongly restricted his access to the complaints process due to his persistent and frequent submission of written complaints;
3. wrongly restricted his non-written contact with council officers under its Employee Protection Register and not reviewed this restriction properly since 2015;
4. provided him with insufficient information in monthly updates about one of his children and on one occasion provided the same photograph in consecutive updates;
5. failed to consider concerns about another of his children in a Looked After Child Review meeting when she threatened to run away and harm herself; and
6. failed to provide him with prompt information when another of his children self-harmed in the care placement.

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What I have investigated

2. I have investigated Mr S’s complaints about the Council’s restrictions on his contact with officers and access to the complaints process and about its failure to provide satisfactory updates and information regarding his children who are looked after. The final section of this statement contains my reasons for not investigating the rest of the complaint.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

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’. 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)
4. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended).
5. If we are satisfied with a council’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)

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How I considered this complaint

6. I discussed the complaint with Mr S and considered the written information he provided with his complaint. I made written enquiries of the Council and considered all the information before reaching a draft decision on the complaint.
7. In relation to the restrictions on considering complaints that the complainant has been aware of for more than 12 months, as outlined above, Mr S could have complained about this matter earlier but as the matter is ongoing I investigated part c) of his complaint from one year before he complained to this office.
8. Mr S 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 should have happened

9. The Children Act 1989 sets out a three-stage procedure for councils to follow when looking at complaints about children’s social care services. At stage 2 of this procedure, the Council appoints an independent investigator and an independent person (who is responsible for overseeing the investigation). If a complainant is unhappy with the outcome of the stage 2 investigation, they can ask for a stage 3 review.
10. “Getting the Best from Complaints” is guidance issued to councils on the implementing the children’s complaint procedure. This guidance includes advice on dealing with “unreasonably persistent complainants”. It states that this may include “frequent, lengthy, complicated and stressful contact with local authority staff” and “the complainant behaving in an aggressive manner to staff or being verbally abusive or threatening". The guidance states that where a council decides to restrict access to the complaints procedure, a warning should be made to the complainant and any restrictions then imposed should be appropriate and proportionate.
11. The Council has a policy and procedure for a register of individuals who threaten, are abusive or violent towards Council employees. It calls this register an Employee Protection Register (EPR). Where the council places a service user on its EPR it ordinarily formally notifies the subject of this by letter. The council’s procedure says it will review inclusion on the EPR at least annually.
12. A council may apply to court for a care order if it is concerned a child is suffering significant harm whilst in the care of his or her parents. If a court agrees to award a full care order the council will gain parental responsibility for the child.
13. A child who is the subject of a full care order will be looked after by the council and usually placed with foster carers or in a residential unit. They become a ‘looked after child’ for whom the council then has a number of duties. The council has a general duty to promote and safeguard the welfare of the child and to plan the child’s care provision including provision for the child’s health, education, emotional and behavioural development, family relationships and self-care skills. It also has a duty to consider the child’s wishes and feelings and to ascertain the wishes and feelings of the child’s parents.
14. A looked after child must have regular reviews to address all aspects of the care plan and which involves those people who are most closely involved in the child’s care. They are chaired by an independent reviewing officer and should take place at six monthly intervals at least and may be specifically arranged outside of these timescales if there is a significant event that impacts on the care plan. Parents would ordinarily be invited to a review. If a decision is made not to invite a parent, the independent reviewing officer must be involved in this decision and the reason for this is recorded on the child’s records file.

What happened

Background

15. The Council says that it has been involved with Mr S and his children since 2009 and confirms that it remains involved with three of his children who are now looked after by the Council under full care orders.

Complaints procedure and handling

16. The Council says that in 2015 Mr S assaulted a member of the Council’s staff and it consequently reviewed how all its staff, including those in its complaints team, would deal with Mr S when he contacted them.
17. The Council says that over the last year, it has further reviewed its arrangements on how the complaints team and the social work team deal with Mr S. This is because the number and frequency of his complaints has increased. The Council also says Mr S has become increasingly abusive and threatening towards its staff. The Council confirms it contacted this office for advice and says that its legal services team, the independent reviewing officer, officers from its complaints team and children’s services team then further considered the matter. Having done this the Council decided it would continue to accept written complaints from Mr S but that it would respond by providing a monthly written response. The Council said that in deciding this it was mindful of needing to ensure there was ongoing communication with Mr S but also that this was manageable for all staff as well. This monthly response was to include a response to any complaints received in the previous month in addition to responding to any correspondence to the Social Worker on any matters of significant concern with respect to his children and a monthly newsletter style update on his children’s welfare and progress. The Council made it clear to Mr S that it would not provide a response to complaints that it had already addressed.
18. The Council says that it decided to continue to allow Mr S to use the complaints process even though he:
• continues to regularly verbally threaten complaints staff and social workers in telephone calls to them and in voicemail messages. It says that since July 2019 the Council has an audio record of 33 threatening voicemail messages Mr S has left for Council staff. I confirm that I have listened to two of these which have included threats to staff and members of their families. The Council says these threats have been of such significance that they were reported to the police and it put in place arrangements to safeguard staff in the workplace and on leaving council buildings. The Council says these safeguards remain in place because, although asked not to, Mr S still delivers his letters of complaint to council building receptions; and
• the complaints are very repetitive, often very long and not clear. The Council says the complaints team and social workers and their managers spend considerable amounts of time working out what the complaint is about and providing responses and this takes time away from other work including with vulnerable children and families.
19. The Council says it reviews the provision of this monthly response as part of the periodic review of Mr S’s retention on the Councils Employee Protection register (EPR).

Employee Protection Register (EPR)

20. The Council placed Mr S on its EPR in 2015. The Council wrote to Mr S in August 2015 confirming this decision had been reached following recent physical and verbal threats towards staff. The restriction precluded Mr S from telephoning or attending any Council buildings meaning all communication had to be made in writing.
21. The Council says it retains evidence to support its decision to continue to keep Mr S’s name on the EPR in order to manage the risk associated with him having face to face contact with Council staff. This evidence includes a record of his behaviour at supervised contact sessions with his children, his telephone contact, text messages he sends and threats he makes to Council staff. The Council says this evidence is considered at meetings when inclusion on this Register is reviewed. The Council says that in line with its procedures it has reviewed Mr S’s inclusion on the EPR annually but has increased this to six monthly over the last 12 month period. The last two reviews have not concluded the evidence supports removal of his name from the EPR. The Council wrote to Mr S in July 2019 to confirm his inclusion on the EPR was to continue. This followed a meeting in June 2019 attended by a number of council officers including some who were senior officers. The meeting identified occasions when Mr S had contact with Council officers including telephone calls, text contact, a face to face meeting and supervised contact sessions. The consideration of information about these identified a number of occasions when Mr S had threatened staff in various Council roles and departments or been unable to moderate his behaviour as well as occasions when communication had gone well. The meeting concluded that Mr S had continued to turn up at council offices when instructed not to, had continued to make telephone calls to staff even though he was asked to correspond in writing and that there had been communication that included abusive, derogatory language and had included a threat to staff. The meeting concluded that as threatening and aggressive behaviour towards staff continued in spite of the restrictions on his contact with him, these restrictions could not be lifted and should remain in place.
22. A further review took place in December 2019. This again concluded that Mr S’s inclusion on the EPR should continue and was followed by a letter to Mr S confirming this in January 2020. The review meeting noted occasions in the previous six months when Mr S had, for example, left abusive and threatening voicemail messages for Council officers, delivered letters to Council offices by hand, threatened young people in a residential unit and threatened staff in that residential unit. It was such information that led the meeting to conclude that inclusion the EPR should continue.

Actions in relation to Mr S’s children

23. The Council says the children’s social worker puts together a monthly update “newsletter” for Mr S for his youngest child who is looked after. The Council says the social worker uses information provided by the carer and those who supervise contact for example to provide photographs for inclusion in these updates. The Council says such people are asked to provide the social worker with a selection of photographs of the events and activities relevant to that particular month to include in the update. The Council says it has already acknowledged and apologised to Mr S that on one occasion the same photograph was included in consecutive newsletters. It says it has also explained to Mr S that it does not have a large number of photographs of Mr S’s child as he believes is the case. The Council addressed Mr S’s complaint about this in several of its monthly responses to Mr S’s complaints including in August, September and November 2019 confirming that it had asked the placement to provide further photos for inclusion in future newsletters.
24. The Council addressed Mr S’s concerns about his daughter’s threats to run away and harm herself in its response to his complaints in May 2019. The Council’s response stated that information about this had been discussed in a looked after child review meeting which had been subsequently shared with Mr S and the Council confirmed that his daughter’s carer at the time had told the Council about these threats. The Council went on to say that the social worker, independent reviewing officer and carers in his daughter’s new placement had not seen any signs of his daughter wanting to harm herself. A later response letter from the Council in July 2019 to further complaints addressed this again as Mr S had raised the issue again. In addition to the response it had made previously and which it repeated in this response, the Council confirmed that Mr S’ daughter was seeing a therapeutic worker who was working regularly with her on her “thoughts, feelings and behaviours to enable her to manage emotions”.
25. The Council addressed complaints Mr S made about it not informing him straight away when one of his children self-harmed in her placement in its response letter in September 2019. In this letter the Council advised that the child’s placement contacted the social worker about this on a Thursday and that the social worker telephoned him the following Monday to tell him about this and to say that it was sending him a letter about this incident. The Council’s response to his complaint confirmed that staff at his daughter’s placement had immediately called an ambulance and that paramedics did not consider she needed hospital admission and also that his daughter had continued with her usual activities the following day.

Was the Council at fault and did this cause injustice?

26. There are no grounds for me to conclude that the Council wrongly restricted Mr S’s access to the complaints process. The Council confirmed that it does so because of Mr S’s frequent and repeated complaints and his threatening behaviour. The Council contacted this office and a number of its officers considered this before reaching a decision to restrict his access. The statutory complaints procedure allows for restrictions to be put in place in particular circumstances including those identified in relation to Mr S’s behaviour including where there is aggressive, threatening and unreasonably persistent behaviour. There are no grounds for me to conclude the Council was at fault in its consideration of this issue or in the way it reached its decision to restrict Mr S’s access to the complaints procedure.
27. I am satisfied that the Council has reviewed Mr S’s inclusion on the EPR at least annually since August 2018 as required under its procedure on this. There are therefore no grounds for me to conclude that the Council wrongly restricted Mr S’s non-written contact with council officers under its EPR and failed to properly review this as he alleges. I am satisfied that the note of its review in July 2019 demonstrates that officers thoroughly considered his behaviour and whether this merited ongoing inclusion on the EPR before reaching its decision. It is not my role to consider the merits of decisions properly reached. It is not therefore for me to consider whether its decision was right or wrong but I am satisfied that it properly and thoroughly considered the matter before reaching its decision to continue Mr S’s inclusion on the register.
28. I am satisfied that the Council acknowledged it provided Mr S with the same photograph in successive updates and apologised for this. It confirms that it asked care providers to provide updated photographs for inclusion in these updates. Whilst Mr S’s complaint to this office also refers to lack of information in these updates it appears that this primarily related to the repeated provision of the same photograph. As this is the case I am satisfied this issue was addressed.
29. I am satisfied that the Council properly addressed Mr S’s concerns about his daughter when she threatened to run away and harm herself. The Council addressed Mr S’s complaint about this in monthly responses to his complaints and these refer to the issue having been discussed in a Looked After Review meeting.
30. I am satisfied the Council provided Mr S with information when his daughter self-harmed in the care placement and that it did this sufficiently promptly given the circumstances. The Council has parental responsibility for Mr S’s daughter by virtue of having a full care order so it properly took responsibility for dealing with immediate concerns about Mr S’s daughter at the time. As Mr S still also has some parental responsibility, the Council ensured that it shared this information with him shortly after the incident and after it had taken responsibility for satisfying itself that his daughter had been properly cared for and was physically well. There are therefore no grounds for me to consider the Council’s provision of information shortly after the incident amounts to fault.

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Final decision

31. There is no fault in relation to the matters Mr S has complained to this office about.

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Parts of the complaint that I did not investigate

32. We cannot investigate a complaint about the start of court action or what happened in court. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5/5A, paragraph 1/3, as amended) As Mr S stated that the matters he complained about in part a) of the complaint, as I have summarised it, have been considered by a judge in the context of legal proceedings I did not therefore consider this part of the complaint.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman