Summary: the Council failed to properly respond and consider Mr F’s complaints in August 2018 but that there is no fault in the substantive issues raised in relation to the Council’s role in his contact with his children or its contact with another council. The Council should apologise for its poor handling of his complaints in August.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall refer to a Mr F, complains about the actions of the Council’s children’s services team. Specifically he says that:

1. between April and August 2018 the Council wrongly prevented him from having contact with his children;
2. the Council passed on information to another council which included opinion rather than facts and social workers did not update this council when the court agreed unsupervised contact;
3. its actions forced him to apply to the courts for contact and this caused him unnecessary expense; and
4. it wrongly refused to consider his complaint about these matters under the relevant complaints procedure.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
3. 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

4. I discussed the complaint with Ms F and considered the written information she provided. I made written enquiries of the Council and considered all the information before reaching a draft decision on the complaint.
5. I gave the Council and Mr G the opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered the responses before I reached a final decision on the complaint.
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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What I found

7. A Child Arrangement Order is a court order that sets out details of who is responsible for the care of a child or how contact with a non-resident parent should take place. It is usually used where the parents cannot agree between them how to split the care of their child/children or to sort out contact arrangements.
8. A child in need is defined under the Children Act 1989 as a child who is unlikely to achieve or maintain a reasonable level of health or development, or whose health and development is likely to be significantly or further impaired, without the provision of services; or a child who is disabled. A Child in Need Plan is drawn up to describe these needs and how they will be met.
9. Councils have a duty under the Children Act 1989 to make enquiries where they suspect a child is suffering, or likely to suffer, significant harm. If concerns are substantiated the Council may convene a child protection case conference. This is a multi-disciplinary meeting whose attendees decide what action is needed to safeguard the child. The conference may decide to make the child the subject of a Child Protection Plan which details what action is necessary to reduce the risk of harm. Subsequent review child protection case conference(s) consider progress made and whether the Child Protection Plan should be maintained, amended or discontinued.
10. A family group conference is a way of bringing a family together and enabling them to plan and make decisions to address a particular issue or problem. The Council facilitates the conference and encourages the family to try to address the issues and create a support network to try to address this.
11. Working Together 2018 is statutory guidance for councils and other agencies on inter-agency working to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. Paragraph 24 of this guidance emphasises the importance of professionals sharing information about the welfare of a child and being alert to sharing information about any adults with whom a child has contact which may impact on a child’s welfare or safety.
12. The Council has a two stage complaints procedure. If the complainant is dissatisfied with the response provided at the first stage they may ask for the complaint to be considered and a response provided at the second stage of that procedure.

What happened

Background

13. Mr F was released from prison in January 2018. On his release the Council organised and supervised a number of contact sessions for Mr F with his children between January and March 2018. The Council supervised these early contact sessions following contact from the probation service and as a result of the history of difficult relations between Mr F and the children’s mother and their children which had resulted in previous involvement of children’s social care and the possible future impact of this on the children as a result of renewed contact. The Council says that there was no legal requirement for it to arrange this contact and that it told Mr F and his former partner that it would make some time limited arrangements but that they would need to either find a contact centre for contact to continue or find someone who could facilitate/supervise the contact outside of a contact centre. The Council says that Mr F was unable to afford to pay for a contact centre venue but he put forward someone the children’s mother knew, Ms Y, as a facilitator for contact. Unfortunately it was difficult to arrange a meeting for Mr F’s children to meet Ms Y as she did not have a phone and this proved very difficult to arrange. This difficulty meant that there was no contact between Mr F and his children between April and August.
14. The Council arranged eight supervised contact between January and March 2018 and only one of these did not go ahead when Mr F did not attend.
15. In June the children continued to be considered Children in Need by the Council. A plan was in place outlining services and support to address these needs.
16. In early June Mr F applied to the Courts for a Child Arrangement Order to decide on his contact with his children. The court issued an Order in October 2018 providing for Mr X to have weekly contact facilitated by Ms Y. It appears that Ms Y has not undertaken this facilitative role at any point.
17. In November 2018 the Council arranged a Family Group Conference where concerns were raised about Mr F’s behaviour towards the children’s mother in front of the children.
18. Mr F’s children were made subjects of Child Protection Plans in February 2019. The reason was emotional abuse as a result of the historic domestic violence in the relationship between Mr F and the children’s mother, ongoing conflict between them around Mr F’s contact with the children and concerns about the attendance and punctuality of one of the children at school. There has been one review case conference and the children remain subject to child protection plans.
19. The Council says that the contact that is taking place is not facilitated by Ms Y and that it involves Mr F going to the children’s school daily at the end of the day, meeting them at the school most mornings. They also go to a restaurant for contact. Contact is a matter that is addressed in the child protection plans having been a source of conflict between Mr F and the children’s mother.
20. In February 2018 Camden’s children’s services team contacted another council area to tell that area that they were currently supervising Mr F’s contact with his children and the reasons for this. Mr F had an older child living in this council’s geographical area and Camden stated that as they were supervising Mr F’s contact with his children in their area, they may wish to consider whether this was necessary for any contact Mr F was having with his other child in their area. The Council’s records show that in June 2018 Mr F asked the children’s social worker to contact the social worker at the other council to clarify what had happened as a result of the contact made by Camden children’s services. The other council confirmed that a social worker there had spoken to the mother of Mr F’s child in that area and would consider if it needed to become involved if Mr F was to have contact with his child in that area.
21. In its response to Mr F at stage 1 of the complaints procedure in July 2018, the Council said that it was required to submit a Section 7 report to the court following Mr F’s application for a Child Arrangement Order and that his concerns about the contact arrangements would be addressed in that report. Mr F replied saying he wanted to complain again.
22. In relation to its refusal to consider Mr F’s complaint about its handling of the contact arrangements and its contacting the other council the Council says that as Working Together highlights the need for information to be shared across local authorities where there are safeguarding concerns, the decision made by the complaint service not to progress this complaint via Stage 2 of the complaint procedure was correct.
23. Mr F complained to this office in October 2018 and we referred the matter back to the Council as it had not fully considered the complaint under its complaints procedure. It provided Mr F with its response in November and advise he could request that his complaint be escalated to stage 2. In its response it:
• Confirmed the reason for its involvement with the family;
• Confirmed its concerns about Mr F in relation to his children relate to his behaviour in front of them;
• Confirmed why his children were subject to a child in need plan;
• Its role in relation to Mr F’s contact with his children.
24. Mr F asked for the matter to be considered at stage 2 but the Council refused stating “Having given this matter further consideration we are unable to progress your Stage 2 complaint request, as the LBC are of the view that your complaints and enquiries with regard to the LA involvement with your family, our legal basis as well as contact arrangements with your children have been responded to appropriately by Children’s services dated 27/11/18…”.

Was the Council at fault and did this cause injustice?

25. There is no evidence that between April and August 2018 the Council wrongly prevented Mr F from having contact with his children. It arranged and supervised his contact between January and March but there was no requirement for it to continue to do so and was a matter for Mr F and the children’s mother to arrange after this. They attempted to arrange this by agreeing with someone they knew that they would facilitate the contact but these arraignments did not happen. The Council was seemingly satisfied with such an arrangement and it cannot be considered the fault of the Council that these arrangements did not materialise.
26. I do not consider the available evidence suggests the Council wrongly passed on information to another council which included opinion rather than facts. It passed on facts about what it was doing and the reasons for this and advised that the other council may wish to consider whether any supervision of contact with Mr F’s child in that area was needed. Given the requirements of the Working Together statutory guidance I would not consider there was fault in the Council’s decision to share information which related to ensuring the welfare of Mr F’s children in contact sessions with another area where he had another child and with whom he may also seek contact. I have seen no evidence that the Council updated the other council on the outcome of his application for a Child Arrangement Order when this was made but it was an application made by Mr F and so I would consider it his, rather than the Council’s responsibility, to update the other Council about this if he considered it relevant.
27. I do not consider the Council’s actions forced Mr F to apply to the courts for contact and that this caused him unnecessary expense. There is no evidence that the Council was intervening in Mr F’s contact with his children and it had no duty to provide a venue or supervisor for his contact with his children. Mr F was responsible for identifying Ms Y as a person who should facilitate ongoing contact and the Council considered her acceptable. It is not the fault of the Council that Ms Y was difficult to contact or attend any contact sessions. I note that the Court did not direct the Council to supervise the contact when it reached its decision on Mr F’s application for contact: it too accepted that Ms Y was suitable to facilitate contact and that the arrangement for this was acceptable.
28. I accept the Council’s argument that some of Mr F’s complaint about the contact arrangements would be addressed and resolved as a result of his application to the court for a Child Arrangement Order. I am not persuaded that it addressed his complaint that the Council had failed to make arrangements for his contact after March and it would have been straightforward for the Council to have explained to Mr F in its letter in August the reasons it did not continue the earlier arrangements after March. I have seen no response to his further complaint about the disclosure of information to the other council area. I consider it should have provided a response to explain the reasons for it sharing this information. The apparent failure to provide a response to his complaint amounts to fault. However, as I do not consider there is fault in the substantive issue ie the Council had a duty to inform the other council of information that could relate to the welfare of a child in its area, I do not consider that the failure to provide this response caused injustice beyond the frustration caused by the failure to provide a response. I have now addressed the substantive issue. In relation to the later complaint in October I consider the Council’s response was thorough and accept that it decided under its published procedure that there were no grounds for further consideration as the previous response had responded thoroughly to the queries he raised.

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Agreed action

29. The Council will apologise for its poor handling of the complaint in August. The Council will provide this apology to Mr F in writing within one month of the date of this decision statement. As I have now addressed his complaint and found no substantive fault, no further personal remedy beyond an apology is necessary. However, the Council will ensure that its staff properly address and respond to complaints in future and will tell us within two months how it will ensure this.

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Final decision

30. The Council failed to properly respond and consider Mr F’s complaints but that there is no fault in the substantive issues raised in relation to the Council’s role in his contact with his children or its contact with another council.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman