Summary: there is no evidence of fault in the way the Council conducted a child protection case conference in February 2019 or the actions it took regarding a possible “transfer of risk” given its duties in relation to working with other agencies to safeguard children.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Ms F, complains that:
1. a child protection case conference arranged by the Council and which took place in February 2019 was unsatisfactory because the chair failed to follow the correct procedures. Specifically she says the chair:

1. wrongly allowed the social worker’s temporary manager, who attended the conference as an observer, to offer an opinion on whether Ms F’s child, X, should be made the subject of a child protection plan and also prevented the health visitor from participating fully;
2. wrongly over-ruled the consensus of opinion which was that X should not be made the subject of a child protection plan;
3. failed to reach a decision within the conference meeting;
4. failed to draw up a plan in the conference meeting;
5. falsified the notes of the meeting; and

2. the Council wrongly referred the matter to her employer (Ms F works with children) and this resulted in her being “signed off” work pending an occupational health assessment. In addition Ms F says the Council told her employer that he should report Ms F to her professional trade body which he refused to do.

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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. Child Protection Case Conferences are multi-agency bodies and the conference itself is not a body in the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. However we can investigate aspects of the functioning of the conference because:
• the lead statutory body is usually the council;
• the social worker is employed by the council;
• the council is responsible for making child protection decisions based on the conference recommendations; and
• council officers will be involved in agreeing the recommendations.
4. 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

5. 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.
6. I gave the Council and Ms F the opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I took account of the comments I received before reaching my final decision on the complaint.

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What I found

What should have happened

7. 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. A core group of key professionals oversees and monitors the plan.
8. Councils usually have a process for dealing with complaints about child protection case conferences under their local child protection/safeguarding procedures. The complaints procedure is for people dissatisfied with the conduct or outcome of a child protection case conference and covers complaints about the way the conference was run, whether a child should have a child protection plan and decisions about the category of harm (physical abuse, neglect, emotional harm or sexual abuse). The decision of the conference cannot be changed using the complaints procedure but the complaints process can decide to, for example, decide that a conference did not follow proper procedures and recommend remedial action or to re-convene a conference to reconsider the decision and this may result in a different decision.
9. The chair of the conference is responsible for the conduct of the conference meeting. The child protection case conference plays an advisory role but the final decision is the responsibility of the council.
10. Working Together 2018 is statutory guidance on how agencies must work together to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. This guidance confirms that the law requires organisations working with children must have clear policies for dealing with allegations against people who work with children. It requires councils have a policy to do this.
11. Buckinghamshire County Council has the required policy for managing allegations made against employees working with children. This procedure states:
• the procedure should be applied where there is an allegation or concern raised about a person who works with children when someone has: behaved in a way that has harmed or may have harmed a child; possibly committed a criminal offence against or related to a child; or behaved towards a child in a way that indicates they may pose a risk of harm to a child;
• the Local Authority Designates Officer (LADO) oversees and manages the investigations of allegations against people working with children; and
• the procedure says a LADO referral must be considered where an allegation about an employee working with children occurs outside of their work life and there may be a transfer of risk, for example, where a “member of staff’s own children are subject to a Child Protection Plan…” or is a “…perpetrator or victim of domestic abuse”.
12. The Council’s procedures for managing allegations against employees requires the LADO to keep comprehensive records and that s/he should monitor progress in line with Working Together guidance. Decisions about whether any action should be taken lies with the employer and the employer’s records are kept until normal retirement age or 10 years if this is longer. The LADO also keeps records for the same period of time. Where an allegation is considered substantiated by evidence the employer and the LADO are required to discuss whether a referral should be made to the Disclosure and Barring service and/or to a professional or regulatory body.

What happened

The child protection case conference

13. The re-convened child protection case conference in February 2019 was agreed as a result of an earlier complaint Ms F submitted about the social work assessment for an earlier conference.
14. The notes of the reconvened case conference confirm that the conference was attended by Ms F, her former partner who is her son’s father, two Council social workers and the health visitor. Also attending was the chair and the minute taker and a child protection advisor. The police provided a written report for the conference. Ms F says that the social worker’s usual manager did not attend and that a different manager, who had no prior knowledge of the family, attended.
15. The concerns that led to the conference related to a number of incidents of domestic violence between Ms F and her former partner reported to the police and the impact of this on their son. The Council says that the information provided by the police demonstrated that both Ms F and her former partner perpetrated violence towards one another so each of them was both perpetrator and victim in different incidents.
16. During the case conference Ms F expressed her frustration that the social worker had not visited her son for a period of 6 weeks even though he was on a child protection plan and that she did not attend the first core group meeting. Ms F said that she had taken her son to see the health visitor so that she could see he was doing well.
17. The decision of the case conference was that Ms F’s son should continue to be the subject of a child protection plan under the category of emotional abuse. The notes of the conference demonstrate that the council officers generally considered the level of risk to X was high (this included the social work manager) and that the health visitor, Ms F and her former partner considered the risks were lower. The notes confirm that the health visitor did state however that she considered the threshold for significant harm was met.
18. In its comments to me and in its letters to Ms F in relation to her complaint, the Council says that an initial child protection plan was drawn up in the conference but that as Ms F and her former partner were unwilling to participate in this, a decision was taken that this plan would discussed further in the core group meetings.
19. The Council says that the notes of the February child protection case conference were sent to all those who attended the conference and that none of these people challenged the accuracy of the notes and points out that they could have done so either on receipt of the written notes or at the core group meetings or the review conference later in the year but did not do so.
20. Ms F complained to the Council about the conduct of the February conference in early March 2019.
21. The Council provided its response to the complaint around mid-March. In its response it stated:
• the decision of the conference was that the threshold for significant harm was met and that Ms F’s son should remain the subject of a child protection plan. The Council accepted that a decision as to whether Ms F’s son should be registered under one or two categories would be made after the conference meeting;
• the notes of the conference confirmed that the social worker, social work manager, health visitor and chair of the conference all considered Ms F’s child was at risk of continuing to suffer significant harm due to difficulties in the relationship between her and her son’s father; and
• the conference could not agree a child protection plan in the conference because neither Ms F nor her former partner would agree to the proposed actions so this was left the core group to agree.
22. A review child protection case conference took place in May 2019. At this conference the decision was taken to end the child protection plan and provide ongoing support to X as a child in need. The reason for the plan ending was that concerns about X no longer met the threshold for significant harm. The notes of the conference record that all the professionals attending were of the view that the best way forward was to make X the subject of a child in need plan. Ms F says the child in need plan ended in July 2019.

LADO involvement/referral to Ms F’s employer

23. The Council says that the children’s social work team decided to refer the concerns to its LADO due to “the concerns regarding transference of risk”. It did this in late 2018 when it was completing its investigation of the concerns as part of its enquiries. Following the original decision to make Y the subject of a child protection plan, a decision was reached that Ms Y did not pose a risk to children in the school.
24. Later, a further referral was made to the LADO following Ms F’s disengagement from the child protection plan, alleged shouting at social workers and that she had allegedly obtained personal information about the social worker. Ms F denies shouting and says she was given the personal information referred to by another member of staff. I am not specifically looking into these allegations. The concerns again centred on the transference of risk given Ms F’s lack of engagement with the child protection plan and associated concerns about her insight into the impact of domestic violence on her own child and consequently on other children she may come across in the course of her work affected by this.
25. The Council’s LADO conducted meetings and liaised with Ms F’s employer to assess this risk as outlined in the Council’s procedures. At the end of this the LADO decided the concerns was substantiated and liaised with Ms F’s employer on managing this.

Was the Council at fault and did any fault cause injustice?

26. There is no fault in the social worker’s temporary manager participating in the decision-making part of the case conference. She had attended the whole conference and heard all the evidence from professionals, seen the social work assessment and heard information provided by Ms F and her former partner. She was therefore in a position to offer an opinion based on the evidence provided. There is no evidence that the chair prevented the health visitor from participating: her views are clearly included in the section of the notes which detail the views of the conference participants.
27. There is no evidence that the chair wrongly over-ruled the consensus of opinion that Y should not be made the subject of a child protection plan. There is no evidence in the notes that the consensus of opinion was that a child protection plan was not required; the notes suggest that the majority considered a child protection plan was necessary. Even if it had been the case that the majority of those attending the conference did not consider a child protection plan was required, the conference chair has the authority to over-rule and could have done so.
28. Ms F says the Council failed to reach a decision within the conference meeting. The notes do detail a decision though the Council accepts there was some discussion as to whether X should be registered under two categories of risk and this was resolved later. The fact that an initial child protection plan was drawn up in the meeting suggests that a decision was reached in the meeting.
29. In relation to the complaint that the Council failed to draw up a full plan in the conference meeting, an initial plan was drawn up but this was not comprehensive as Ms F and her former partner chose not to participate in this so it needed to be further considered in the core group meetings. I do not consider this can be considered fault by the Council.
30. In relation to Ms F’s allegation that the notes of the meeting were falsified, I have tried to resolve this by asking for any contemporaneous notes of the meeting if these still exist. Unfortunately there are none and whilst this means there is no evidence to assist me in this respect the absence of such notes does not amount to fault. The Council points out that none of the professionals who attended the meeting advised the social worker they were unhappy with the notes when these were circulated afterwards. I accept this would have been an indicator that others considered the notes were not accurate and consider the Council’s argument that no-one stated they were inaccurate is persuasive. I have seen no evidence which supports Ms F’s contention that the notes were falsified.
31. Under the Working Together guidance and the Council’s own policy the criterion for making a referral to the LADO was met as Ms F was a member of staff whose own child was made the subject of a child protection plan. There are therefore no grounds for me to conclude that the decision to refer the matter to Ms F’s employer amounts to fault. Again, under the regulations the Council considered whether there was a transfer of risk. I have carefully considered the LADO’s records and am satisfied that the Council followed the required guidelines and policy in regard to the action it took. I cannot consider the action taken by Ms F’s employer as such action lies outside the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. As I have stated above the LADO and the employer are required to consider whether a referral to a professional body is necessary so there are no grounds on which I can say that to do so here amounts to fault.

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Final decision

32. There is no evidence of fault in the way the Council conducted the child protection case conference or the actions it took regarding a “transfer of risk” given its duties in relation to working with other agencies to safeguard children.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman