Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Ms X’s complaint about a social worker’s behaviour at a child protection conference. Social Work England is better placed to consider their professionalism.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Ms X, complains about the behaviour of a child protection conference chair (the chair).

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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’. 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 could add to any previous investigation by the Council, 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)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered the information Ms X provided and the Council’s replies which it provided. I considered Ms X’s comments on a draft version of this decision.

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What I found

4. The Council held a child protection conference to discuss Ms X’s family circumstances in December 2018 and March 2019. Ms X says the conference’s chair lacked cultural awareness and greatly upset her. She complained to the Council. In reply it said:
• The chair had apologised at the March conference for the distress caused
• It apologised in writing for any distress to her
• The chair would attend diversity retraining.
5. Ms X says the Council should suspend the chair and release them from their role. She says the Council failed to reply to her complaint in a timely way and causing her to have to chase the officers. She says following the apology within the meeting the chair then continued to use words which greatly upset her.

Analysis

6. Our role is to investigate the actions of the Council as a corporate body, not to hold a single officer accountable. If Ms X has concerns about the professionalism or integrity of an individual social worker, it is reasonable to expect her to report her concerns to their professional body, Social Work England.
7. It is unlikely, in any event, that our investigation would achieve more than the Council proposed.
8. We will not investigate how the Council replied to Ms X’s complaint as it is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we are unable to deal with the substantive issue.

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Final decision

9. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because Social Work England is better placed.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman