Summary: Mr B complains about the Council’s handling of a referral from the school about his son’s behaviour. There is no fault in the Council’s handling of the referral or the way in which it considered the evidence it obtained about Mr B and his son.

The complaint

1. Mr B complains about the Council’s handling of a referral from the school about his son, C’s behaviour. He feels the Council did not conduct a proper investigation and reached the conclusion that Mr B was to blame for C’s behaviour without scrutinising the evidence thoroughly enough. This caused Mr B and his son significant distress as their weekly contact was stopped during the Council’s investigation. Mr B also complains about the content of the Council’s Single Assessment Report about the incident, which he says contains a substantial amount of inaccurate information about him. Mr B has said this causes him further distress because he feels the Council has not given a balanced view of the situation and appears to have favoured the malicious comments and false allegations made about him by C’s mother and staff at the school who have sided with her. Mr B says C’s mother has since been using the Council’s findings to unfairly modify his contact arrangements with their son.

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What I have investigated

2. I have investigated the Council’s handling of the referral from C’s school. I have explained the reasons for not investigating an aspect of this matter at the end of this decision.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone could take the matter to court. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended)
4. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. 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)
5. We cannot question whether a council’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

6. I have spoken to Mr B and considered the information he has provided.
7. I have considered the information the Council has provided in response to my enquiries.
8. I have written to Mr B and the Council with my draft decision and considered the comments I have received.

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What I found

9. The Children Act 1989 says councils have a duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children within their area who are in need. If a local authority receives a report of concern about a child it must decide what response is required. This includes determining whether:

• the child requires immediate protection, or
• the child is in need and should be assessed under section 17 of the Act, or
• there is reasonable cause to suspect that the child is suffering, or likely to suffer, significant harm

10. If the initial assessment suggests the child may be suffering, or be likely to suffer, significant harm, the council should hold a multi-agency strategy discussion to enable it to decide whether to initiate safeguarding enquiries under section 47 of the Act.

Child in Need plans

11. Councils undertake assessments of the needs of children to determine which services to provide and what action to take. Where the outcome of the assessment is continued children’s social care involvement, the social worker should agree a plan of action with other professionals.
12. The Council’s procedure for assessment of the child in need states the maximum time it should take to conclude an assessment is 45 working days from the date of referral.

What happened

13. This chronology includes key events in this case and does not cover everything that happened.
14. Mr B and his ex-wife share parental responsibility for their son, C, who lives with his mother and spends time every week with his father.
15. In early May 2018, C’s school raised a concern with a social worker from the Council who was attending the school on other business. The school told the social worker C had used language of a sexual nature around other children. The school showed the social worker a sheet of paper where C had written some of terms he had used. The school said it was concerned about where C had learnt these words from and asked for the social worker’s advice on how to deal with the issue.
16. The school believed from speaking to C that his father, Mr B, had explained what some of the terms he was using meant. The school had contacted C’s mother, Ms D, as Mr B had been scheduled to collect C from school that day. The social worker advised the school to make a safeguarding referral about the incident after viewing the paper C had written on. When Ms D arrived at the school, she was shown what her son had written and decided contact with his father would cease while the Council completed its investigation. Ms D and the school expressed concern that Mr B may react badly to being told he could not have contact with his son. The social worker decided to seek support from the police when informing Mr B of the situation, to help ensure things remained calm.
17. A police officer attended the school and spoke to Mr B. They told him that Ms D had decided to cancel his contact with his son that day because of the concerning language C had used and written down. Mr B agreed not to have contact with C over the weekend as originally planned and to wait for the social worker allocated to investigate the matter to meet with him to discuss the concerns further.
18. The Council decided investigation of the safeguarding referral should be conducted by the same social worker that had attended the school on the day of the incident. The investigating was conducted under section 17 of the Children Act. The social worker met with Mr B, his son and Ms D on several occasions before concluding that there were no safeguarding concerns. The social worker did however consider that C and his parents would benefit from some support from a family key worker to help create consistency in parenting styles as the differences were causing disruption for C. The Council completed the assessment for C on 12 June 2018, which was 20 working days from the date of referral.
19. The Council recorded the positive steps Mr B had taken to help with providing consistent parenting to C since the family key worker started supporting the family. Mr B says he found out when he was reunited with C that his son’s account of what had happened in school in early May was different to the information in the school’s account to the social worker. Mr B raised concerns with the Council about this as he felt the school was colluding with his son’s mother to discredit him and prevent his contact with C.
20. The Council investigated Mr B’s complaints and concluded the school had followed the appropriate procedures by making a referral about the incident involving C in May 2018. The Council noted Mr B was not complaining about the social worker that completed the Child in Need assessment for C or the Council team that had since supported C and his family. The Council informed Mr B that it had not found evidence to suggest C’s school had acted inappropriately.
21. Mr B brought his complaint to the Ombudsman as he remained dissatisfied with the Council’s response and handling.

Was there fault causing injustice?

22. The Council’s notes from the date of the incident involving C at school in early May 2018 record all the contact Mr B has had with the Council about the matter. There is also recording of comments made by Ms D and the school. I cannot see evidence the Council has favoured one parties’ comments over another. The Council’s focus within the records has been on C and his well-being throughout the documents it has shared with us. As a result, I cannot conclude there was any fault in the Council’s handling or recording following the incident at school.
23. Mr B has said the Council has failed to record the full content of his comments in response to the incident involving C at school within its assessment report. Although it is correct the Council has included an extract of Mr B’s email rather than the full content, the full email is contained in the records the Council holds for C. Anyone within the Council viewing C’s file would therefore be able to see the full content of Mr B’s correspondence with the Council about this matter. Again, I do not consider there is evidence of fault in the Council’s recording in this respect. The Council was entitled to include the content it considered relevant to its assessment of C. Mr B’s disagreement with this does not mean the Council has made its assessment with fault.
24. There is no doubt that Mr B and his son found it very upsetting when their contact stopped from 11 May to 12 June 2018. Mr B and C were used to seeing each other more than once a week and this time apart will have considerably impacted on this. I cannot however find the Council at fault for this. The social worker attending C’s school shortly after the incident decided, based on the limited information they had at the time, suggested contact between Mr B and his son stopped while the Council assessed what had happened. The social worker used their professional judgement and assessment of the situation to ensure the best interests of the child were prioritised. It took the Council 20 working days to complete the child in need assessment for C, which was well within the maximum timeframe of 45 working days set out in its procedure, so there is no fault in the Council’s handling in terms of the time it took.
25. Mr B says he is concerned that his ex-wife was now using the content of the Council’s child in need assessment report for C to modify his contact outside the terms of the arrangements agreed in court. While this may be an unfortunate and worrying result for Mr B and his son, there was no fault by the Council as it had a statutory duty to act upon the referral from his son’s school in early May 2018.

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Final decision

26. I have completed my investigation and found no evidence of fault in the Council’s handling.

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Parts of the complaint that I did not investigate

27. Mr B has said his son’s mother has modified and halted his usual contact with his son following the school’s referral and the Council’s investigation. The Ombudsman cannot investigate the conduct of Mr B’s ex-wife and he would need to pursue any concerns he has about this through the courts.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman