Summary: Mr B complains about an assessment carried out by children’s social care at the Council, and about failure to follow the statutory process for children’s services complaints. The Ombudsman finds no fault to call into question the assessment or the independent complaint investigation. There was however fault in the Council’s handling of the complaint process after that investigation was concluded. That fault led to injustice for Mr B, for which a remedy payment and apology has been agreed.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mr B, complains the Council carried out a flawed and biased assessment which led to it preventing him having contact with one of his daughters. In addition, the Council failed to carry out a stage three investigation which is part of the relevant statutory complaints process.

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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. 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)
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)
5. 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

6. I considered all the information provided by Mr B about his complaint. I made written enquiries of the Council and took account of the information and evidence it provided in response.
7. I provided Mr B and the Council with a draft of this decision and considered the replies received.

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What I found

Background to Mr B’s complaint

8. Mr B has a daughter, A, who lives with her mother. In September 2017 the Council received a referral from a women’s aid organisation to say that A and her mother were living in a refuge, allegedly following harassment from Mr B (an allegation he denies).

The first assessment

9. When a council receives a referral from someone with concerns about a child’s welfare, it should gather information to assess the nature and level of any harm the child may be facing. In this case the Council decided to do a statutory assessment to include an exploration of the child’s current situation and any potential risk factors posed by Mr B. The assessment concluded there was no role for social care. Mr B and A’s mother were no longer a couple and the family were in a place of safety. Contact between Mr B and his daughter was to be at a contact centre. The Council considered this appropriate as there was a non-molestation order in place for harassment.
10. Mr B was dissatisfied with the Council’s assessment. He made a complaint. He considered that the social worker had lied in the assessment and had alienated him from his daughter. In April it was noted he had received an initial response for the complaints manager but then no further communication. On 29 April 2018 Mr B sent the Council an email saying he had been into the office to collect a copy of the assessment the previous week and had to wait several hours; he disputed some of the information contained in the report and disputed that harassing of A’s mother by way of text messages could be classed as domestic abuse.
11. On 8 May Mr B met with two managers from the children’s social care team to discuss his concerns. There are no records from this meeting and these officers are no longer employed by the Council. But following the meeting one of the managers requested a fresh assessment. The officer noted that Mr B had provided text messages he believed showed A’s mother to be manipulating the situation, and that he had alleged her new partner presented a risk to A due to alcohol misuse.

The second assessment

12. The new assessment began on 15 May and the social worker met Mr B on 18 May. On 4 July he telephoned the Council to find out what was happening: he was advised the matter was to be closed. Mr B said he believed his daughter might be murdered. The social worker confirmed she had seen no evidence that A was at risk from her mother, and the refuge equally had no concerns. The statutory assessment completed on 27 June was signed off on 18 July, confirming a decision of no further action. A redacted copy was sent to Mr B on 14 August.

Children’s Social Care complaints

13. 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 Investigating Officer 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 that investigation was flawed. However, he may look at whether a council properly considered the findings and recommendations of the independent investigation.

How Mr B’s complaint was dealt with

14. Having made a formal complaint about how the Council had dealt with the matters described above, a stage 2 investigation was undertaken. The complaints investigated included the content and management oversight of the assessments, the time taken to compete them; that the Council has not responded appropriately to concerns that Mr B had raised about A’s mother’s ability to parent and safeguard their daughter; and that the Council communicated false information which resulted in Mr B losing access to his daughter. None of these elements of complaint were upheld. One further element was upheld, and that concerned discrepancies and conflicting information provided to Mr B during his communications with the Council. The Investigating Officer noted there was clear evidence that conversations with Mr B and emails from him had not been recorded. There was a discrepancy between the social worker’s written record of a telephone conversation and Mr B’s own audio recording, and it was noted there had been an inconsistent approach between social workers about whether testimonials referencing Mr B’s personality and parental skills were appropriate. This was a reference to the second statutory assessment having taken account of testimonials from the mothers of Mr B’s other children, while the first had not.
15. When the stage 2 investigation had been completed, the Council wrote to Mr B on 1 March accepting the findings. It offered an apology for the upheld elements of complaint and said that a payment of £200 in acknowledgement of time and trouble would be issued within 14 days. In terms of service improvements, it said management oversight of case recording had been strengthened and training provided to staff where appropriate.
16. The third and final stage of the statutory complaint process should have been a panel hearing. Numerous attempts were made to try to arrange this. It is unclear what date was first suggested but on 15 March the Council sent Mr B an email apologising for having to amend the date and giving a new date of 12 April. That was cancelled after Mr B advised the Council on 10 April that he was unwell. The Council then proposed the 9 or 14 May and asked for response by 2 May otherwise the panel would be released and the date vacated. Mr B did not respond until the evening of 3 May, so another new date had to be arranged. Due to lack of availability of panel members this could not be accommodated before July. On 24 May the Council advised that a provisional date had been booked for 12 July, and it confirmed this by letter. However, there are two copies of the letter on the Council’s file: one is dated 18 June asking for response by the 28 June, and the other dated 25 June asking for response by 5 July. I will return to this point later in this statement. On 4 July Mr B sent the Council an email seeking to confirm the panel would be going ahead on 12 July. But it seems that as Mr B had not replied by the earlier date of 28 June, the panel had once again been cancelled and the date vacated. It wrote to him confirming this on 15 July and said it had now decided not to progress to stage 3.

My analysis

17. It is not the role of the Ombudsman, nor of a stage 3 panel, to reinvestigate complaints unless the stage 2 investigation has clearly not been robust enough. In this case I have taken account of the relevant social care records and specifically considered the assessments, as well as the investigating officer’s interview records. I considered whether Mr B had been able to contribute his views to the assessment, and am satisfied he had, given that he met with the social worker during the process. The assessment document does record concerns Mr B raised and noted he had provided information regarding his relationship with his two other daughters and their mothers, which was positive. The purpose of the assessment was solely to consider safeguarding concerns in respect of A: it was not to inform contact arrangements. The outcome of the assessment was a matter for the professional judgement of relevant staff within children’s services. On balance overall I am satisfied there were no flaws in the processes followed calling into question the complaint investigation or, significantly, the assessment with which the complaint was concerned.
18. There were, as the Council acknowledged, failings in communications with Mr B and in record keeping. An appropriate remedy was proposed, to include apology, payment and service improvements. However, there was a delay of more than four months in providing the payment to Mr B. That was fault, and Mr B was put to some further time and trouble pursuing the payment.
19. There was also fault in the confused communication and record keeping in the arrangements for a stage 3 panel, as set out at paragraph 15 above. It is unclear whether both letters were sent, each bearing a different date for the required response, but clearly on 4 July Mr B had an expectation that the panel date of 12 July was still a possibility. There is therefore a question about whether as a result of the confused communications Mr B lost an opportunity to have his complaint dealt with by a stage 3 panel, a hearing at which he would have been given the opportunity to make representations in person. However, Mr B was then able to bring his complaint to the Ombudsman, mitigating the injustice caused.

Agreed action

20. In recognition of the injustice caused to Mr B by the failings identified in this case, I recommended that within four weeks of the date of the decision on this complaint the Council issue Mr B with a further apology and a further payment of £200.
21. The Council has agreed to these recommendations.
22. The Council has confirmed that it has recently implemented steps to issue complaint response letters in respect of children’s services by recorded delivery. That will ensure that delivery of letters in respect of panel hearing dates for example is documented, and no further recommendation was needed in respect of this.

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Final decision

23. I have completed my investigation on the basis set out above.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman