Summary: Mr X complains the Council failed to facilitate indirect contact between himself and his daughter and failed to share care team meetings relating to his daughter with him. The Ombudsman will not investigate this matter further as we could not add anything to the Council’s investigation or achieve anything more for Mr X by further investigation.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Mr X complains the Council failed to facilitate indirect contact between himself and his daughter and failed to share care team meetings relating to his daughter with him.

Back to top

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’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe:

• it is unlikely we would find fault, or
• the fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• it is unlikely we could add to any previous investigation by the Council, or
• it is unlikely further investigation will lead to a different outcome, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants, or
• there is another body better placed to consider this complaint.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), 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)

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

4. I have considered the complaint and the documents provided by Council and discussed the complaint with Mr X. I have also sent a statement setting out my draft decision to Mr X and the Council and invited their comments.

Back to top

What I found

5. The law sets out a three stage procedure for councils to follow when looking at complaints about children’s social care services. At stage 2 of this procedure, the Council appoints an Independent Investigator and an Independent Person (who is responsible for overseeing the investigation). If a complainant is unhappy with the outcome of the stage 2 investigation, they can ask for a stage 3 review. If a council has investigated something under this procedure, the Ombudsman would not normally re-investigate it unless he considers the investigation was flawed. However, he may look at whether a council properly considered the findings and recommendations of the independent investigation.

Background

6. Mr X has a daughter with a former partner. When his former partner stopped Mr X from seeing his daughter, he made an application to the courts to gain access to her.
7. The Council subsequently applied to court for a Care and Interim Care or Supervision Order regarding Mr X’s daughter. Mr X’s case was then attached to the Council’s case. As part of these proceedings the Court asked the Council to produce an assessment regarding indirect contact between Mr X and his daughter. The Council’s report recommended that indirect contact take place between Mr X and his daughter.
8. This indirect contact did not take place, and Mr X returned to court. The court ordered the Council to produce a further assessment regarding Mr X’s request for direct contact with his daughter. The report recommended that direct contact between Mr X and his daughter take place after a period of indirect contact.
9. The court subsequently granted the Council a supervision order under section 31 of the Children Act 1989 regarding Mr X’s daughter. The court order included provision for Mr X to have indirect then direct contact with his daughter. Mr X’s relationship with the Council broke down and the Council advised him the direct contact with his daughter would not continue.
10. These events are the subject of an earlier complaint to the Ombudsman. In resolution of this complaint we recommended the Council re-establish contact between Mr X and his daughter.

Current complaint

11. It was agreed in court in December 2017 that there would be indirect contact between Mr X and his daughter on a fortnightly basis. A social worker would take letters/ cards to and collect them from Mr X’s mother’s address on alternate Fridays. Mr X complains the social worker missed an appointment in January 2018 and failed to share indirect contact from his daughter in early February 2018.
12. The court also directed the Council to appoint an independent social worker to carry out further assessments within a set timeframe. Mr X complained there was a significant delay in appointing the independent social worker and this impacted on his contact with his daughter.
13. In addition, Mr X complains he did not receive any minutes relating to Care Team Meetings or Looked After Reviews for his daughter. Mr X had been told he would receive copies of minutes relating to the care, development, health and education of his daughter. He felt that in not providing the minutes of these meetings the Council was deliberately excluding him from details of his daughter’s progress.
14. The Council considered Mr X’s complaints at all three stages of the statutory complaints process. At stage two the investigating officer upheld Mr X’s complaints that the Council had failed to follow court orders in terms of facilitating indirect contact. It partially upheld Mr X’s complaint that the Council had not shared Care Team minutes with Mr X.
15. The investigating officer did not uphold Mr X’s complaint that the Council had not appointed an independent social worker within court ordered timescale. Nor did they uphold his complaint that the Council failed to share an indirect contact response from Mr X’s daughter on 2nd February 2018.
16. The investigation officer recommended the Council:
• Apologise to Mr X for all of the elements upheld or partially upheld.
• make arrangements to cover or cancel non- priority appointments, when staff are unexpectedly absent from work and to implement procedures to allow for accessible electronic diaries to be used in the future.
• to immediately inform Mr X of any reluctance by his daughter to provide indirect contact and of any issues which may impact on indirect contact taking place in the future.
• ensure that Mr X is provided with copies of minutes/reports from meetings relating to his daughter in the future.
17. The minutes of the stage three Review Panel record Mr X’s desired outcomes as:
• For all point of his complaint to be upheld;
• To ensure this situation did not happen to another family;
• To receive copies of all minutes of meetings Mr X is entitled to; and
• For all social workers involved in his daughter’s case to be sacked.
18. Mr X amended these during the meeting as he no longer wanted to see all the minutes of meetings prior to December 2018; and did not really want people to lose their jobs.
19. The panel upheld Mr X’s complaints that the Council had failed to follow court orders in terms of facilitating indirect contact and that the Council had not shared Care Team minutes with him. It did not uphold Mr X’s complaint that the independent social worker was not appointed within the court ordered timeframe. The Court had given a timeframe for the completion of any assessments but had not given a timeframe for appointment of the independent social worker. The independent social worker had submitted their report to the court within the set timeframe. The panel did not uphold Mr X’s complaint that the Council failed to share an indirect contact response from Mr X’s daughter on 2nd February 2018. It noted Mr X’s daughter had been reluctant to engage in direct contact that day.
20. The Panel endorsed the stage two investigation recommendations and added a further recommendation that the Council ensure Mr X is provided with minutes of meetings from December 2018 to date and that this continues on an ongoing basis.
21. The Panel’s minutes state that Mr X felt the Investigating Officer’s conclusions were logical and fair, and Mr X understand the rationale. Mr X also confirmed the Council had addressed the four recommendations made by the Investigating Officer in an appropriate and timely manner. The minutes note Mr was thankful for the meeting with the review panel and for having his voice heard. He felt that he had had an opportunity to put your views forward and had been listened to.

Analysis

22. I recognise Mr X remains extremely upset about the Council’s actions to restrict his contact with his daughter in the past and the efforts he has had to go to resolve the matter. But I do not consider we could achieve anything more for Mr X by further investigation of his complaint.
23. The Council has accepted there was fault in the way it dealt with Mr X. It has apologised and taken action to address this. Mr X has confirmed he is satisfied with the outcomes of the stage three review panel. Mr X states he now has contact with his daughter and receives copies of minutes of meetings.

Back to top

Final decision

24. The Ombudsman will not investigate this matter further as we could not add anything to the Council’s investigation or achieve anything more for Mr X by further investigation.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman