Summary: The Council did not deal with Mr B’s complaint about an initial child protection case conference properly: it delayed in its consideration under the statutory children’s complaints procedure and took too long to reach a decision that it did not qualify for this procedure as it related to matters related to accuracy of data on its files. It also delayed before taking action subsequently recommended by the Information Commissioner’s Office

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Mr B, complains that the Council relied on inaccurate information to justify making his daughter, X, the subject of a child protection plan in May 2019. Specifically, he says it:
1. failed to follow its complaints procedure properly when looking into his complaint about this; and
2. later refused to correct the information or add his views to the records despite a recommendation from the Information Commissioner's Office.
2. Mr B wants the Council to end its involvement with the family and correct its records.

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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. My colleague discussed the complaint with Mr B. I have considered the notes of that conversation, information and copies of documents and evidence that Mr B provided about his complaint. This includes copies of his written complaints and the Council’s responses, a timeline of the Council’s handling of the complaint that it provided to this office together with copies of its correspondence with Mr B and a copy of the decision issued by the Information Commissioner’s Office.
6. Mr B and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.
7. 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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What I found

What should have happened

8. 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.
9. A child in need plan may be drawn where a child is considered to be a child in need as defined by the Children Act 1989. Support is detailed in the plan and aimed at providing help to the child and family to improve outcomes for the child. It is a lower level of involvement than that related to child protection and is voluntarily entered into by families.
10. Working together to Safeguard Children 2018 is statutory guidance for councils and other agencies should work together to assess children’s needs and promote and safeguard their welfare. It sets out principles, processes and timescales for conducting child protection investigations.
11. Councils are covered by local child protection and safeguarding procedures based on the Working Together guidance. Although not required, these procedures will usually include a process for dealing with complaints about child protection case conferences. We would generally consider it fault if a council did not consider how it would handle such complaints.
12. This complaints procedure addresses the outcome or the conduct of the conference including the way the conference was run, the decision about whether a child protection plan should be in place and the category any plan was made under.
13. The decision of the case conference cannot be changed through the complaints process but could, for example, decide that the conference did not follow the proper procedures, support the conference decision, decide that the conference had not followed the proper procedure and take some action, or decide a fresh conference should be held and that conference may reach a different decision.
14. Wokingham Borough Council is part of Berkshire West Safeguarding Children Partnership (BWSCP). The website for BWSCP states that Wokingham Borough Council is a partner agency in this Partnership and that for a complaint about a child protection case conference the complaint should be made in the first instance to the chair of the conference. BWSCP then has a procedure under which a complainant may consider a complaint about the way a child protection case conference has functioned but cannot change a decision reached in a conference. This states it will consider complaints about:
• the process of the conference;
• the outcome in terms of the facts about the concerns or the category under which a Plan was made;
• the decision to make a plan.
15. BWSCP’s procedures confirm that a ground for appealing against a conference decision may include that the information on which the conference based its decision was substantially inaccurate.
16. WBSCP’s procedure for appealing/complaining about a conference comprises:
• an informal stage which is considered by the manager for case conferences and the conference chair and is described as a problem-solving stage in which the team manager and the conference chair will seek to reach an early resolution and arrange a meeting in 10 days. The outcome is sent in writing to the complainant;
• stage 2 which is a complaint meeting undertaken by the team manager and/or a service manager for child protection conferences and which should be arranged in 28 days. It includes a review of the notes of the conference and reports to the child protection case conference; and
• stage 3 which is a panel convened within 15 days of a request following dissatisfaction after a stage 2 response. The outcomes of the panel may include, for example, a reconvened child protection case conference or to uphold the decision of the conference being complained about.
17. The Council has a three stage corporate complaints procedure which comprises an early resolution stage where an officer from the department makes direct contact to resolve the matter, stage 1 where a manager from the department subject to the complaint provides a response and stage 2 where someone from the complaints team investigates and considers the evidence. The timescales for these stages are 3 days for early resolution, 15 working days at stage 1 and 20 working days at stage 3. The procedure does not refer to mediation within this process.
18. The law sets out a 3 stage procedure for councils to follow when looking at complaints about children’s social care services (The Children Act 1989 Representations Procedure (England) Regulations 2006).
19. “Getting the Best from Complaints” is statutory guidance for councils implementing this three stage procedure.
20. The statutory guidance confirms that most stage 1 complaints should be responded to in 10 working days and a maximum of 20 days if the 10 day deadline cannot be met. The procedure states that where a response is not provided in 20 days at stage 1 the complainant can request consideration at stage 2. The complaints manager is required to advise the complainant that they have the right to move to stage 2 if the timescale has elapsed for stage 1 and the complainant has not received an outcome.
21. Paragraph 3.1.5 of the guidance confirms that where a council accepts a complaint at stage 1 of the procedure the complainant is entitled to pursue their complaint through all three stages. It further states that councils are “obliged” to ensure that the complaint proceeds to stages 2 and 3 of the procedure once it has been accepted as a complaint eligible to be considered under this procedure at stage 1. The guidance makes it clear that a complainant may complain to this office at any time during the process.
22. The statutory guidance says that the statutory complaints procedure may be used to consider complaints that relate to services provided under Part 3 of the Children Act 1989 (the Act) and some elements in parts 4 and 5 of the Act. Child Protection case conferences do not fall under any part of the Act that is subject to consideration under the statutory complaints process though a council may choose to consider a complaint under tis procedure even though it is not required to.
23. The Council uses the term “danger statements” to refer to the reasons its children’s social work teams are working with a family. It says these are designed to be factual though they include what the social worker is concerned may happen in future if nothing changes.
24. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is law that places requirements on organisations related to data they hold about individuals. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) may consider a complaint about an organisation failing to meet its requirements under the GDPR.

What happened

Background

25. In October 2018 the Council received a referral from X’s school with concerns about the impact on X of arguments at home and Mr B’s alcohol use.
26. The Council made enquiries and convened a child protection case conference. The outcome of that conference was that X was the subject of a child protection plan in May 2019. A review conference in September 2019 decided the child protection plan was no longer required and put in place a child in need plan instead.
27. Mr B says that during June 2019 he wrote to the chair of the child protection case conference on three occasions expressing concerns that the danger statements used in the child protection case conference were incorrect. The Council says that even though Mr B had not submitted a complaint as such about this conference, the chair of the conference provided Mr B with a response at stage 1 of the complaints process related to case conference dissatisfaction. I have not seen a copy of this letter. The Council says that in response to the second and third letters from Mr B in June, the chair of the conference responded but essentially felt the matter was one for the social work team to address as Mr B’s concerns were essentially about the danger statements produced by that team.
28. Mr B says the Council's complaints manager contacted him in early July and agreed that a team leader from children’s social care would call him on his return from holiday in late July to discuss these. Mr B says the team leader did not contact him. The Council’s chronology states that Mr B said he did not want to make a complaint at this stage but wanted the danger statements altered.
29. In its response to my draft decision the Council said that it initially considered whether Mr B’s complaint should be considered under the complaints process for case conferences and provided an initial response under this process but decided it was a matter for the social work team after the chair of conference first provided responses because concerns related to alleged inaccuracies in the social work report. I accept that there were clear grounds for the Council to have done this and also accept that the Council acknowledges that it would have been helpful if the chair of the conference had directed Mr B to the children’s complaints process when she provided her first response to Mr B in June.
30. The Council says that in July, having received information about Mr B’s concerns from the case conference chair, the children’s services complaints manager decided to initially consider the matter as a complaint under the children’s statutory complaints procedure while the Council sought more information from Mr B. The Council says that when it contacted Mr B he said he did not want to complain and just wanted the danger statements changed so that matter was passed back to the social work team for it to pursue.

Mr B’s complaint to the Council

31. Mr B then did complain to the Council in early August. The Council confirms that this complaint was sent to the to the complaints team for consideration under the statutory children’s complaints procedure. The main focus of that complaint was his allegation that the “danger statements” used in the initial child protection case conference were inaccurate as they relied on out of date information that no longer applied to his situation at the time of the case conference. The Council says it considered this at stage 1 of the statutory complaints process passing the matter to the social work team manager to respond at stage 1. She offered to meet with Mr B to discuss the complaint but he refused and so the Council agreed to issue a written response. When he had not received this written response by 10 September, Mr B wrote again asking that his complaint be escalated to stage 2 of the procedure.
32. The complaints manager replied on 17 September to say a manager in the children’s social work service was reviewing the danger statements and would contact him again shortly.
33. Mr B wrote again in late September, having received a response regarding the danger statements. He said the danger statements in the review case conference remained inaccurate, he required the information to be corrected under the GDPR and complained about the poor handling of his complaint.
34. The complaints manager replied around a week later clarifying that the danger statements had been re-written because the tone of them was considered unhelpful rather that that the content was inaccurate. The complaints manager therefore said that they would not be removed but that in future the revised versions would be used. In respect of the complaint handling he did not accept that the response at stage 1 had been provided late.
35. In early October Mr B wrote to the Council providing more detailed comments on the danger statements and disputing their accuracy. He also reiterated his request under the GDPR to correct the information of file and disagreed with the assertion that the complaint was dealt with properly at stage 1 of the complaints procedure stating the first response was provided in late September.
36. The Council responded in late October. The officer providing the response said that the danger statements that referred to the past could not be amended as they were a record of the danger at that time. He said that there was more scope to take account of his disagreements with the current statements. He asked Mr B is he would like the social work team manager to review the current statements. He also provided responses to other points Mr B had raised including his dissatisfaction with the complaints process.
37. In response Mr B wrote to the Council again in early November stating he wanted the Council to cease all involvement with his family, repeated his GDPR request and reiterated his dissatisfaction with the handling of his complaint.
38. The Council responded later in November stating the current involvement was largely voluntary as the child protection plan had ended but also stating that Mr B’s partner’s views would also need to be taken into account with regard to rejecting ongoing support from the Council, that his concerns about the GDPR were being passed onto the Council Data Protection team for consideration and again stating the complaints procedure had been complied with but accepting that the wording on the Council’s website with regard to the grounds for proceeding to stage 2 and use of mediation could be clearer and that this would be amended. The Council says that it was at this point that the complaint was passed from the statutory complaints procedure to the corporate complaints process.
39. Mr B pursued his complaint about the data to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). The Information Commissioner issued a decision in late December 2019 stating the council:
• failed to provide an adequate response to the concerns he had raised in line with data protection legislation; and
• should make corrections where information held was factually inaccurate and consider adding a note to the file to reflect any disagreement of interpretation.
40. In February 2020 Mr B wrote to this office to say the Council had failed to take the action required by the ICO and also complaining about its handling of his complaint.
41. On 11 March the Council wrote to Mr B again stating that it had been contacted by the ICO again in February and the officer apologised that he had not replied to Mr B’s letter in December either but he understood the matter to have been resolved. He said that, having consulted the service, although Mr disagreed with the opinions given by professionals in the review child protection conference notes, this did not make them inaccurate or unlawful. He said there was no evidence that the opinions they reached was flawed. He also pointed out that the danger statements had already been amended. He asked Mr B to provide details of what statements he considered were factually inaccurate and said they would consider these but that at present there was no information which justified deletion or editing. The Council said it would nonetheless put a note on the file to the effect that Mr B disagreed with the records.
42. In response to my request to see the note put on the file the Council sent me a copy of this. I confirm the evidence shows the Council placed a note on X’s file in March 2020 which confirms that Mr B was unhappy with statements made by professional in the review case conference notes and considered them untrue. The note goes on to say that having reviewed this the Council decided the notes would not be edited or deleted as they reflected the views of professionals but that the note was a record of Mr B’s dissatisfaction.

Is the Council at fault and has this caused injustice?

Action taken following the involvement of the Information Commissioner’s Office

43. The Council considered whether it should amend or delete data that was inaccurate but decided that Mr B’s dissatisfaction centred on statements which were recorded to be the professional opinions of social work staff and had no grounds to conclude that these were not factually based. It invited Mr B to provide specific details of statements he considered factually flawed and said it would consider these. I note that after the social work team manager altered the danger statements before the review child protection case conference in September 2019 (when the child protection plan ended) Mr B continued to state they were inaccurate. In its response in October the Council stated these could be reviewed again by the current manager if that was what he wanted. The Council did go on however to point out that it was important for the social work team to include comments provided by Mr B’s child and also that danger statements include an element of the social worker’s concerns and some relate to historical concerns. In responding to the ICO’s request the Council asked Mr B to provide details of what statements he considered were factually inaccurate and said they would consider these but stated that at present there was no information which justified deletion or editing. The Council said it would nonetheless put a note on the file to the effect that Mr B disagreed with the records and it has done so. The evidence I have seen demonstrates that the Council has considered the ICO’s recommendation and responded to Mr B about this. There are no grounds therefore for me to consider the Council has failed to properly consider the ICO’s request and so there is no evidence of fault in this respect. The Council did however delay in following up on the ICO’s recommendation and I consider this did cause Mr B injustice in the form of avoidable frustration.

The Council’s handling of Mr B’s complaint from August 2019

44. It was not until August that Mr B submitted a formal complaint to the Council (though I note the Council’s acceptance that the conference chair could have accelerated this process possibly by advising Mr B about his right to make a complaint under the statutory process in June/July, I would not consider this is an omission that amounts to fault).
45. The Council says that between August and November it was considering the complaint under the statutory children’s complaints procedure. It argues that during this period it was corresponding with Mr B to try to resolve the issues complained about. The Council argues it was not for the Council to try to work out what was inaccurate in the information in its files. It says that it was only when, over time, it became clear that the matter he wished to pursue was about the inaccurate information, it decided the matter was one for the corporate complaints process. In effect however, the Council’s complaints process was not pursued after that point as Mr B took the matter to the ICO.
46. The handling of the complaint from the point that Mr B submitted it was somewhat confused. I find the following fault in relation to the Council’s handling of the complaint between August and November 2019:
• the nature of Mr B’s complaint was not one that ever qualified for automatic consideration under the statutory complaints procedure though the Council was free to choose to consider it under this process if it wanted to;
• I do not accept that the Council provided a response to the stage 1 complaint in August in any way that satisfied the 10 or 20 day time limit for this;
• the statutory process states that once in progress, the complainant has the right to pursue it through all stages of the complaints procedure but nothing in the Council’s correspondence with Mr B between August and November made it clear to him that the matter was being pursued under the statutory procedure or advised him how to progress to the next stage of that procedure if he was dissatisfied with the response;
• since it had started to be considered under the statutory process the Council did not have the authority to decide to change to the corporate procedure in November; and
• mediation does not form a part of the statutory complaints process so the references to that are immaterial.
47. I recognise that the Council was trying to properly understand the complaint Mr B was making between August and November and that this resulted in limited progress being made between August and November on his unhappiness about the information on file with regard to the danger statements (the changes made to the danger statements during his period did not satisfy Mr B’s expectations about what should have been achieved in doing so). I consider it is possible that the matter would have been resolved more promptly had the complaint been identified as essentially one about challenging data on file from then and consequently considered under the corporate procedure from August. Whilst the Council said it was only in November that it became clear that he was dissatisfied with the data held, I think this was the essence of the complaint he made from the time he started pursuing the matter in June and he certainly made it very clear in September that he was dissatisfied with the handling of his data under the General Data Protection Regulation. A prompt response advising that the Council did not agree that it should alter the data earlier was likely to have avoided the drawing out of the Council’s consideration of the matter and meant that Mr B would have taken the matter to the ICO earlier.
48. I accept the Council had no grounds to cease all involvement with his family and did not agree with Mr B’s dissatisfaction with the records so would not agree to change them in November. I consider however that his dissatisfaction with the handling of his complaint had some merit. In relation to this the complaints manager referred to his letters in September and October as having been “more substantive responses as part of mediation”. A further letter from the complaints manager to Mr B in November refers to the September and October letters as “more substantive responses as part of stage 1 mediation”. Such an approach has no place in consideration under the statutory procedure which is what the Council claims it was doing at that point.
49. The shortcomings in the Council’s handling of the complaint as detailed above caused Mr B injustice in the form of avoidable time and trouble, uncertainty and frustration. However, I do note the Council did try to resolve Mr B’s unhappiness about the danger statements and it could not achieve some of what he asked for including, for example, to end its involvement when his daughter was still subject to a child protection plan. It was not the remit of any complaints process to achieve this. Ultimately Mr B pursued his complaint about the danger statements accuracy to the ICO as was his right but then the Council also failed to respond to the ICO’s request to take action promptly.

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Agreed action

50. To remedy the injustice in the form of avoidable frustration, uncertainty and time and trouble as a result of the shortcomings in its handling of the complaint and delay in pursuing the ICO’s request to take action, the Council will apologise and pay him £150. The Council should issue this apology and payment within one month of the final decision on this complaint.
51. The Council will confirm to us, within two months of the final decision on this complaint, that it has a process in place to ensure that matters it considers under the statutory complaints procedure are completed according to the time limits for this and the use of mediation is not used within this process with the effect of delaying responses or consideration.
52. Mr B said the outcomes he wanted to achieve are for the Council to end its involvement with the family and correct its records. It is not within our remit to require the Council to end its involvement with Mr B’s family but my understanding is that its more recent involvement has been to provide support to his daughter and family under the child in need process. Intervention on that basis is not part of the child protection process but is in place to support the family. The Council has taken action on Mr B’s concerns regarding the records as detailed.

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Final decision

53. The Council failed to handle Mr B’s complaint properly under its published processes. It also delayed in taking the action recommended by the ICO but it has now responded to the request of the Information Commissioner’s Office regarding the accuracy of the data on its files.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman