Summary: Mrs B complained about how the Council handled child protection issues relating to her daughter. The Council did not invite Mrs B to a child in need meeting and did not provide her with the minutes of that meeting. The Council’s apology and reminder to officers is satisfactory remedy for the injustice caused.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Mrs B, complained about the way the Council dealt with child protection issues. Mrs B complained the Council:
• failed to contact her before removing her daughter from her care in 2016 and failed to contact her for three months after that;
• failed to provide her with updates following meetings with her daughter;
• failed to tell her about child in need meetings;
• unreasonably told her she could not go to the hospital to see her daughter;
• failed to return her phone calls;
• wrongly said she had mental health issues, leading it to withhold contact with her daughter;
• failed to act on her concerns about her ex-partner’s treatment of her daughter;
• failed to provide her with her daughter’s new address;
• relied on wrong information about how her parents had dealt with her daughter and delayed telling her about those concerns until they were at court.

Back to top

What I have investigated

2. I have investigated the complaint as summarised in paragraph one with the exception of the first and final point. The final section of this statement contains my reason for not investigating those parts of the complaint.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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)
4. 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)
5. 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. The Ombudsman cannot question whether a Council’s decision is right or wrong simply because Mrs B disagrees with it. He must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended and 34(3))
6. 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)

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

7. As part of the investigation, I have:
• considered the complaint and Mrs B's comments;
• made enquiries of the Council and considered the comments and documents the Council provided;
• considered Mrs B’s comments on my draft decision; and
• gave the Council an opportunity to comment on my draft decision.

Back to top

What I found

Background

8. Mrs B was living with her daughter in 2016. Mrs B’s ex-partner had a contact order in place and had his daughter for regular periods. When her daughter reported concerns about Mrs B hurting her she went to stay with her father. The Council placed Mrs B’s daughter on a child in need plan.
9. The court ordered the Council to attempt supervised contact between Mrs B and her daughter. That took place until Mrs B’s daughter raised further concerns. Contact then changed to telephone contact. That stopped after three telephone calls at Mrs B’s request as she wanted face-to-face contact. The Council tried to encourage Mrs B to have telephone contact to build up the relationship, which Mrs B declined.
10. Following reports of bruising caused by Mrs B’s ex-partner the Council held a strategy discussion followed by an initial child protection conference. The conference decided to make Mrs B’s daughter subject to a child protection plan under the category of emotional harm.
11. The Council decided the case no longer warranted a child protection plan in January 2018. That was because the Council was satisfied Mrs B’s ex-partner was engaging with support. From that point Mrs B’s daughter was on a child in need plan.
12. The Council received a further report about Mrs B’s ex-partner potentially hurting his daughter in June 2018. Police visited and told the Council Mrs B’s daughter had admitted she had lied about the incident. The Council completed an updated social work assessment and put in place some extra support for Mrs B’s ex-partner. Mrs B’s ex-partner has now moved out of the Council’s area with his daughter.

Analysis

13. Mrs B says the Council failed to provide her with updates following meetings between the social worker and her daughter. While I understand Mrs B’s concern about her lack of involvement in her daughter’s life when she went to live with her father, the Council does not have a responsibility to update a parent following a meeting with the child. Instead, the normal process is for the parent to get updates through reports for child in need/child protection meetings as well as at those meetings. I therefore cannot criticise the Council for not providing individual feedback following each time the social worker visited Mrs B’s daughter.
14. The Council accepts it failed to tell Mrs B about a child in need meeting which took place on 28 June 2017 and failed to send Mrs B the minutes of that meeting. I agree with the stage two investigator that although Mrs B had said she did not want to be involved in the process the Council should have continued to invite her to meetings and provide minutes. Failure to do that is fault.
15. Mrs B says the Council unreasonably told her she could not go to the hospital to see her daughter. I have found no evidence suggesting the Council told Mrs B she could not visit her daughter in hospital or attend hospital appointments. However, the documentary evidence shows the Council raised with Mrs B its concerns about both parents attending hospital appointments given the level of animosity between them and the impact this had on Mrs B’s daughter. I do not criticise the Council for sharing its concerns with Mrs B. The Council’s responsibility was to protect Mrs B’s daughter and the documentary evidence is clear the relationship between the two parents was poor and impacting on Mrs B’s daughter.
16. Mrs B says the Council failed to return her phone calls. Having considered the documentary evidence there are several references to times when officers have returned telephone messages from Mrs B. The only dates Mrs B has provided for when the Council did not return calls relate to 22 and 23 August 2017. In the absence of any documentary records detailing Mrs B’s request for a call back on those dates I cannot reach a safe conclusion about whether the Council received a request for a call back on those dates or returned the call.
17. I have found no evidence to support Mrs B’s allegation the Council withheld contact between her and her daughter because of its incorrect assumption she had mental health issues. Instead, the documentary evidence shows Mrs B did not have contact with her daughter because her daughter did not want face-to-face contact and Mrs B did not want to continue with telephone contact. There is evidence in the documentary records though of the Council encouraging Mrs B to take part in telephone contact to improve her relationship with her daughter with a view to it moving to face-to-face contact. There is no evidence to suggest the Council prevented contact either on the basis of Mrs B’s alleged mental health issues or on any other basis. I therefore have no grounds to criticise it.
18. In reaching that view I note the Council says it recorded in the initial child protection plan Mrs B had mental health issues when that is not accurate. As I said in the previous paragraph, I have found no evidence to suggest incorrect recording had any impact on contact between Mrs B and her daughter. I note though the Council has placed a record on the file to make clear any reference to Mrs B’s mental health is incorrect. The Council has also apologised to Mrs B for the incorrect reference. I welcome that.
19. Mrs B says the Council failed to take action when it received concerns about her ex-partner’s treatment of her daughter. Mrs B says she has evidence of 22 cases of abuse which she says the Council failed to follow up. Having considered the documentary evidence I am satisfied the Council dealt with the concerns raised appropriately in 2017 by beginning a section 47 investigation and then placing Mrs B’s daughter on a child protection plan. That resulted in the Council putting in support for Mrs B’s ex partner and his daughter. I am satisfied the Council decided no further action was appropriate by January 2018 because it was satisfied Mrs B’s ex-partner had engaged with the process. Participants at the conference were satisfied there was no evidence of risk from Mrs B’s ex-partner. I recognise Mrs B may strongly disagree with that decision. However, as that decision was reached properly after considering the steps Mrs B’s ex-partner had taken to address how he handled his daughter’s behaviour issues I have no grounds on which I could criticise the Council.
20. I am also satisfied when the Council received another report in June 2018 it acted appropriately by speaking to Mrs B’s daughter, her father and the police. As Mrs B is aware, her daughter retracted the allegation against her father. I am nevertheless satisfied the Council acted appropriately by carrying out a further social work assessment and providing support from the intensive prevention service. So, while I appreciate the action the Council took likely fell short of what Mrs B would have liked to happen I am satisfied the Council handled the case properly. I therefore have no grounds to criticise it.
21. Mrs B says the Council failed to provide her with her daughter’s new address. The documentary records show Mrs B’s daughter moved to a different address in the Council’s area in 2017. The Council delayed providing Mrs B with that address as she asked for it on 23 September 2017 and the Council did not provide it until 11 October 2017. I am satisfied though the reason for that delay was because the Council sought Mrs B’s ex-partner’s permission to release the address. I do not consider that fault.
22. Mrs B’s daughter moved again in 2018 but this time out of the Council’s area. The Council has not provided Mrs B with the new address partly because Mrs B’s ex-partner asked the Council not to share the address with her and partly because Mrs B’s daughter now lives outside the Council’s area. In those circumstances I do not criticise the Council for not sharing the address.
23. So, the only fault I have found for the complaints investigated is in relation to the failure to invite Mrs B to a child in need meeting in June 2017 and failure to provide her with the minutes of that meeting. I am satisfied the Council has apologised to Mrs B and sent a memo to those dealing with child protection and child in need cases to remind them of the policy on involving parents in meetings and providing minutes of meetings. I am satisfied with the action the Council has taken and make no further recommendation.

Back to top

Final decision

24. I have completed my investigation and found fault by the Council in part of the complaint which the Council has already remedied.

Back to top

Parts of the complaint that I did not investigate

25. I have not investigated Mrs B’s concerns about what happened when her child was removed from her care or contact with the social worker immediately afterwards. That is because this relates to what happened in 2016 and early 2017. As I said in paragraph 3, the Ombudsman will not normally investigate complaints about events which happened more than 12 months ago. In this case there is no evidence Mrs B put in a complaint to the Council about the events in 2016/early 2017 until July 2018 which was already more than 12 months after the events complained of. In those circumstances I see no reason to exercise the Ombudsman’s discretion to investigate that part of her complaint.
26. I have not investigated matters which a court has already adjudicated on. That includes Mrs B’s concerns about alleged wrong information about her parents’ treatment of her daughter, which were referred to in court proceedings. It also includes Mrs B’s concerns about her ex-partner’s treatment of her daughter during court proceedings. Again, those matters were presented to the court and the Ombudsman therefore cannot comment on them.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman