Summary: There is no fault by Wiltshire Council in relation to this complaint about the content of a child protection plan put in place as a result of a decision reached at a child protection case conference

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall refer to Mr B, says the Council wrongly required him to leave the family home after a multi-agency child protection case conference decided his children were at risk of significant harm as a result of domestic violence perpetrated by him towards the child’s mother. The child protection plan stated that Mr B was not to have contact with the children at the home.
2. Mr B says the Council’s actions caused him injustice as his contact with the children was restricted and having to live elsewhere and travel to contact with the children caused him avoidable expense.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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)
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 considered the written information Mr B provided with his complaint and made written enquiries of the Council. I considered all the information before reaching a draft decision on the complaint.
6. I gave the Council and Mr B the opportunity to comment on my draft decision and took account of the responses I received before reaching a 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.
8. A strategy meeting is ordinarily held following an initial assessment that concludes a child has suffered or is likely to suffer significant harm. It usually involves the police, children’s social care staff, health professionals and sometimes other agencies including, for example, staff from the child’s school. The main purpose of that meeting is to decide what action needs to be taken next.
9. 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.

What happened

Background provided by the Council

10. The Council says that in August 2018 it received a referral that Mr B had been arrested following “a significant incident of domestic violence”. He had been bailed with a condition that he did not contact his former partner, Ms C. It says there had been previous incidents of domestic abuse.
11. Mr B has a child with Ms C and one of Ms C’s older children, for whom Mr B was not the biological father, also lived with them.

Action taken by the Council

12. The Council says that in October Mr B’s bail conditions were lifted and he was back living with Ms C and the two children. Social workers at the Council were concerned about this and arranged a Child Protection Strategy Meeting which led to enquiries under the Children Act 1989 and a decision to hold an Initial Child Protection Case Conference.
13. The case conference took place in October by which time Mr B had been arrested again after assaulting Ms C.
14. During the case conference meeting Ms C said that she and Mr B had separated, and she would be seeking an injunction or a non-molestation order to prevent Mr B contacting her or her children. The case conference decided that the children should be made subjects of a child protection plan and part of this plan was that Ms C would have no contact with Mr B and that he would have no unsupervised contact with the children. The Council says that social workers were sufficiently concerned that they said a Legal Planning Meeting would be arranged if Mr B and Ms C resumed their relationship. This meeting would consider initiating legal proceedings to protect the children.
15. The plans for ensuring the children’s safety included:
• Mr B having supervised contact with the children at a venue other than the home address and that the relationship between Mr B and his former partner remained ended; and
• Mr B and Ms C were not to spend time together without another named person being present.
16. The Council says that in December 2018 Mr B told the children’s social worker that the Council had no right to prevent him seeing his former partner. When the social worker stated she did have the authority to do this the Council says that Mr B said he would be contacting his solicitor.
17. The Council says that in January 2019 Mr B told the Council he was taking legal action against the Council.
18. A review child protection case conference took place in January 2019 and the children remained the subject of child protection plans.

Was the Council at fault and did this cause injustice?

19. In relation to the complaint that the Council wrongly required Ms C to end her relationship with Mr B which meant Mr B no longer lived in the family home, there is no evidence of fault. The Council has a duty to investigate where there are concerns that a child is suffering significant harm. In this case, as a result of the enquiries under the Children Act, the Council decided a multi-agency child protection case conference should consider whether the children were at risk of harm and whether a child protection plan was needed to ensure their safety. The conference decided a plan was needed and the plan included restrictions on Mr B’s contact with both his former partner and the children to ensure the children’s safety. The reason for this was the risk identified was caused by violence from Mr B towards Ms C and the impact of this on the children in the household. There is no fault in the Council’s actions as this was a decision it was entitled to make having considered the concerns. I also note that the Council says that Ms C intended seeking legal orders to restrict Mr B’s contact with her. If she obtained these, these would have prevented any contact between Mr B and Ms C in any case.
20. In relation to restrictions on the venue for Mr B’s contact with the children, this is related to the previous point. As Mr B was not permitted to live in the family home due to the restrictions on his contact with his former partner which formed part of the child protection plan, it would have been unacceptable for him to have contact with the children in that home. There is no fault in this decision as it was a decision the Council was entitled to make.
21. Ultimately, if Mr B did not want to or had not abided by these restrictions and had gone to the home to see either his former partner or the children the Council would have considered taking legal action to ensure the safety of the children. The Council was clear that this was the case. Mr B told the Council that he had sought advice from his solicitor so was presumably aware of the possible outcomes of not abiding by the child protection plan. It was entirely a matter for the Council to consider such action and there would be no grounds for me to consider that such a plan amounts to fault.
22. As I do not consider there is fault by the Council as Mr B has alleged there are no grounds for me to consider the injustice Mr B has claimed in the form of inconvenience in having to travel to contact and any costs incurred by this and paying for alternative accommodation.

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Final decision

23. There was no fault by the Council in relation to the content of the child protection plan.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman