Summary: There was fault by the Council in raising a formal complaint about Mr and Mrs X six months after the foster placement ended and without raising the issues with them first. The Council will, within the next month, withdraw the complaints. The investigation of the complaint made by Mr and Mrs X was inadequate as it did not address itself to the core issues.

The complaint

1. Mr and Mrs X foster children. The placements are made through an independent fostering Agency (the Agency). Six months after a foster placement ended the Council complained to the Agency about Mr and Mrs X’s behaviour and action during the placement. They complain that the investigation of their complaint did not investigate the substance of the original complaints the Council made about them. They consider that without such an investigation their reputations have been damaged.

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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)
4. 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

5. I considered the complaint and spoke to Mr X. I asked the Council for its comments on the complaint and additional information. I sent a copy of a draft of this statement to Mr X and the Council and invited their comments

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What I found

6. In March 2017, six months after a placement ended, the Council complained to the Agency about Mr and Mrs X’s behaviour and action during the placement. The Agency responded in detail in early May. It did not uphold the complaints. There was a meeting between the Council and the Agency in June and the Council responded again at the beginning of July. The Agency wrote again. The Council sent a final response at the end of August.
7. Mr X complained to the Council both about the substance of the allegations made and about the delay in doing so. The Council would not accept the complaint either under the statutory children’s complaints procedure or under its internal complaints process. The Council said it could only accept a complaint from the Agency as that was the body which the Council had a contractual arrangement with. Mr X complained to the Ombudsman.
8. We found the Council should consider the complaint. An officer of the Council and an independent person investigated Mr X’s complaint. Mr and Mrs X were dissatisfied with the outcome and a review panel was convened. Much of the complaint was upheld. The Council accepted the findings, apologised and offered £1000 in recognition of the faults.

Analysis

9. The crux of Mr and Mrs X’s outstanding concern is that the original allegations the Council made against them in March 2017 have not been withdrawn or properly investigated. The investigating officer and the independent person commented on some of the points that had been raised in the original complaint but acknowledged officers had some genuine underlying concerns about Mr and Mrs X.
10. The Review Panel said the Investigating Officer's report did not provide enough detail about the core issues raised in the original complaint by the Council to the Agency. The Panel was not, therefore, clear about the events leading up to the end of the placement. The Panel said it would have been helpful if the complaint had been reorganised and the Investigating Officer and Independent Person had split the complaint into specific parts so each of the separate details could have been considered individually. This would have provided more structure to the Investigating Officer's resulting analysis. The Panel concluded that concerns that the Council raised in the complaint to the Agency may well have been valid. It said that observation was from a neutral position as they were not reviewing that complaint and had not seen the original complaint letter.
11. The Panel said it could not recommend the original complaint be retracted as it had not seen the letter of complaint. But recommended the Director take a view on the original points of complaint and respond directly to Mr and Mrs X with the Council’s current position. If the Director decided not to retract the complaints then they should appoint a member of staff to set out why the concerns were raised in the first instance.
12. I agree with the approach and comments made by the Panel. I accept there were difficulties in agreeing a complaint with Mr and Mrs X and it was not realistic to take a long document as a complaint that could be investigated. A summary with headings was needed to make it manageable. But the statements that were arrived at did not address the core issue – the original complaints made by the Council against Mr and Mrs X. This meant that no matter how thorough the investigation was it was never going to address what was the crux of the matter.
13. In responding to my enquiries on the complaint the Council has said that its position is there were valid concerns held by the social work unit that needed to be addressed formally with Mr and Mrs X and their Agency so it will not withdraw the complaints. It has offered to meet with Mr and Mrs X to discuss the concerns or to set out the concerns about the standard of care provided in writing.
14. Our role is to consider whether there has been fault and if there has to ask the Council to take action to put the complainant back in the position they would have been in had the fault not occurred. There is no question it was wrong for the Council to raise the issues after a delay of six months and in the way that they were raised. They should not have been made as a formal complaint with the Agency but raised with Mr and Mrs X as they arose and escalated if necessary at the time. It is not possible to turn the clock back and do that now. But it is not acceptable to leave the original complaint letter on the record when it should never have been issued. The only acceptable way forward is for that letter to be withdrawn as that is what comes closest to putting the complainants back in the position they would have been in had the fault not occurred.
15. It would then be open to the Council to raise the concerns it had afresh. This would not be entirely satisfactory as it would be so long after the events. So the Council would need to consider carefully what would be achieved by pursuing this now.

Agreed action

16. The Council will withdraw the complaints it made about Mr and Mrs X to the foster care Agency.
17. The Council has already apologised and the offered £1000 is a satisfactory remedy for all the faults found.

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Final decision

18. There was fault by the Council in raising a formal complaint about Mr and Mrs X six months after the foster placement ended and without raising the issues with them first. The Council should withdraw the complaints. The investigation of the complaint made by Mr and Mrs X was inadequate as it did not address itself to the core issues.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman