Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council (19 018 669)

Statement Closed after initial enquiries Looked after children 19-Aug-2020

Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Ms X’s complaint about the Council’s involvement with her family, its decision in 2004 to take care proceedings on her son, and contact arrangements in recent years. Most of the complaint is outside the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction because a court considered the case and due to Ms X complaining late. There is no reason to investigate current contact arrangements.

London Borough of Barking & Dagenham (20 000 979)

Statement Closed after initial enquiries Looked after children 13-Aug-2020

Summary: The Ombudsman should not investigate Ms J’s complaint about the Council’s involvement with her family. We have already considered and decided the main issues raised, and it is unlikely we would find fault in how the Council has dealt with her contact expenses.

Hertfordshire County Council (19 016 776)

Statement Upheld Looked after children 29-Jul-2020

Summary: Ms X complains of poor care of her daughter while in a children’s home, leaving her daughter at risk. The Council accepted it failed to give Ms X the information it should. It also failed to deal with her complaint about the care through the statutory procedure it must use. This is part of a pattern of faulty complaint handling by the Council in children’s social care cases, which it has agreed to rectify. It will apologise to Ms X for the fault found and immediately start a second stage investigation under the statutory procedure.

Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council (19 013 208)

Statement Not upheld Looked after children 23-Jul-2020

Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Miss B’s complaint about the way the Council communicated with her and responded to her concerns about her children. This is because the issues are too closely linked to ongoing court action.

London Borough of Camden (19 008 876)

Statement Upheld Looked after children 17-Jul-2020

Summary: The Council is not at fault in taking seven months to offer self-contained accommodation to Mr X. The Council is at fault as it failed to escalate Mr X’s complaint to stage two of the children’s social care complaints procedure but this did not cause significant injustice to Mr X.

Southampton City Council (19 010 777)

Statement Upheld Looked after children 14-Jul-2020

Summary: Mrs X complained the Council failed to provide appropriate language interpretation, delayed in responding to her concerns about her children’s care whilst they were in foster care, and delayed in providing records of contact sessions and review meetings. This meant she was not able to fully participate in the process and was worried about her children’s care. The Council was at fault. It will pay Mrs X £1,000 to remedy the injustice caused. It has made some changes to its processes and will consider further improvements.

London Borough of Camden (18 018 921)

Statement Upheld Looked after children 08-Jul-2020

Summary: Mr X, a care leaver, complains the Council failed to provide him with proper support and made mistakes with his financial support that resulted in arrears. He says this made it impossible for him to relocate from an undesirable location and ultimately contributed to him being made homeless. He also complains about the Council’s delay in investigating his complaint and its eventual decision not to investigate his complaint at stage three. He says this caused him distress. The Council has accepted partial fault for some of Mr X’s complaint. It has suggested a remedy. The Ombudsman finds further fault and has made further recommendations.

Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council (19 017 214)

Statement Closed after initial enquiries Looked after children 06-Jul-2020

Summary: The Ombudsman does not propose to investigate this complaint about the Council’s action in relation to contact between the complainant and his son. This is because the majority of the complaint issues are late. We cannot add to the Council’s response regarding current actions or achieve the outcome that the complainant wants.

Middlesbrough Borough Council (20 000 822)

Statement Closed after initial enquiries Looked after children 06-Jul-2020

Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint about concerns the complainant has about a fostering arrangement involving some friends. This is because the complainant has no involvement with what happened and no information could be shared with him.

Kent County Council (19 013 265)

Statement Upheld Looked after children 06-Jul-2020

Summary: Mr X complained the Council restricted contact with his two children who are subject to a care order and live in foster care to six supervised visits a year. He said the Council has failed to transition the children back to his care after agreeing to do so. The Council was not at fault. It carried out regular child in care reviews, considered the outcome of parent assessments and psychological assessments and considered the children’s views and wishes. It decided it was in the children’s best interests to remain in foster care and decided not to change Mr X’s contact arrangements. The Council was at fault for failing to provide Mr X with consultation documents after it excluded him from the child in care reviews. It has already apologised for this oversight, but I have made a service recommendation to prevent recurrence of this fault.