Summary: The Council is at fault for failing to deal with Mrs X’s complaint through the statutory children’s complaints process. The Council should apologise to Mrs X and arrange for her complaint to be considered.

The complaint

1. Mrs X says the Council failed to provide her with proper support when she fled domestic violence. Mrs X says the Council accused her of lying about being abused and said she was the perpetrator of abuse against her ex-partner.
2. Mrs X says she was sectioned as a result of the Council’s failure to provide her with support and the Council placed the children with her ex-partner who she was fleeing from. Mrs X says social workers were abusive to her when they visited her in hospital and failed to involve her in care proceedings regarding her children.
3. Mrs X says the Council has made false statements about her in reports sent to courts as well as in its own records. She says this has caused her significant distress and the Council’s statements are disputed by medical professionals involved in her care.
4. Mrs X says the Council failed to report her ex-partner to the police when he made abusive statements about her in front of the children. Mrs X says this is a breach of her ex-partner’s suspended sentence and restraining order.
5. Mrs X says her ex-partner has refused to allow her to have agreed contact with her children even though they want to see her.
6. Mrs X says the Council have left her children at risk with her abusive ex-partner and its treatment of her has caused her significant distress and resulted in her hospitalisation.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

7. 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)
8. 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

9. I have considered information the Mrs X has provided to the Ombudsman. This includes details of her complaint.
10. I have also considered information the Council has provided to the Ombudsman. This includes its responses to Mrs X’s complaints and some case notes regarding her children.
11. Mrs X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.
12. 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

Children’s statutory complaints process

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 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.
14. The Children Act 1989 Representations Procedure (England) Regulations 2006 set out details of who may complaint through the statutory procedure as well as what actions can be complained about.
15. The Regulations say complaints under the statutory complaints process may be brought by “a parent… or someone who has parental responsibility” for a child as well as “such other person as the local authority consider has sufficient interest in the child or young person’s welfare to warrant his representations being considered by them”.
16. The Regulations say complaints can be made about the all functions of a council under Part 3 of the Children Act 1989 as well as some functions under Part 4 including:
• The effect of a care order and the council’s actions and decisions where a care order is made.
• Control of parental contact with children in care.
• How supervisors perform their duties where a supervision order is in force.
17. Statutory guidance which accompanies the Regulations says councils can consider complaints about social work information or the content of reports which have gone to court.

What happened

18. Mrs X complained to the Council in 2020 about how it had dealt with her and her children since 2017. The Council responded to her complaint at stage 1 of its corporate complaints procedure on 1 May 2020. The Council found:
• There were no child in need meetings between March 2019 and August 2019 regarding the children.
• A risk assessment was not completed which was necessary to progress contact between the children and Mrs X.
• Social workers failed to maintain contact with Mrs X at the level agreed.
• There were no records of complaints to the Council from medical professionals responsible for Mrs X’s care.
• The Council has used inappropriate language to describe Mrs X’s behaviour and records would be amended as a result.
• The views of a Health Visitor about the children’s welfare was properly recorded in the court care plan.
• The Council failed to understand the suspended sentence and restraining order in place for Mrs X’s ex-partner.
• The Council failed to advise Mrs X that her children’s cases were being transferred to a new team within the Council.
19. The Council apologised for the faults it identified. However Mrs X remained unhappy with its response and asked for the complaint to be considered at
    stage 2 of the Council’s complaints process.
20. The Council replied to Mrs X on 9 June 2020 and declined to investigate her complaint at stage 2 of its complaints process as it “would be unlikely to provide any additional information or lead to a different outcome”.
21. I asked the Council why it didn’t deal with Mrs X’s complaint through the statutory children’s complaints process. It said:
22. the six elements of complaint all related directly to the complainant herself - ie staff conduct, case records, misinformation, lack of action in respect of the conduct of an ex-partner and administration arrangements in respect of the case.

“Taking into account these points, and the information referred to above, I determined that:

• In this case, the complaint was focussed on issues that directly affected the complainant.
• It was therefore appropriate to consider the complaint under our Corporate Complaints Process.”
1. The Council quoted a section of the Ombudsman’s report on the children’s statutory complaints process from 2015 which says there may be occasions where complaints about children’s services should be dealt with through the corporate complaints process.

My findings

24. The Council is at fault for dealing with Mrs X’s complaint through its own complaint’s process rather than the statutory children’s complaints process.
25. The section of the Ombudsman’s 2015 the Council has quoted relates to a specific example where a grandmother complained about her grandchildren. Neither of the child’s parents consented to the complaint and the children were estranged from the grandmother.
26. This is not the case with Mrs X’s complaint. Mrs X has a right to complain under the statutory complaint’s process and the matters she complains of are within the scope of the process.
27. Mrs X has also set out how the alleged fault by the Council has impacted on both her children and herself. This includes the children being placed at risk of emotional harm, failing to ensure regular contact and failing to provide her with support when the children were in her care.
28. As a result of the Council’s failure to put the complaint through stage 2 of the statutory children’s complaints process Mrs X has been caused significant time and trouble.
29. The Council should arrange for Mrs X to have her complaint considered through stage 2 of the statutory children’s complaints process. She will still be able to complain to the Ombudsman once she has exhausted this process.

Agreed action

30. The Council has agreed to take the following action to remedy the injustice caused to Mrs X as a result of the fault I have identified:
• Apologise to Mrs X for failure to put her complaint through the statutory complaints process and pay her £100 to acknowledge the unnecessary time and trouble this caused.
• Arrange for a stage 2 investigation into Mrs X’s complaint under the statutory children’s complaints process.
31. The Council should issue the apology and pay Mrs X £100 within 4 weeks of my final decision. The Council should begin its stage 2 investigation without delay once my final decision has been issued.
32. The Council should also take the following action to improve its services:
• Review complaints about children’s services which have been dealt with through the Council’s corporate complaints process over the past 12 months to ensure these have been dealt with under the correct process.
• Arrange for relevant staff to have training in handling complaints about children’s services.
33. The Council should take this action within three months of my final decision.

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Final decision

34. I have completed my investigation as I have found fault causing injustice. The action I have recommended is a suitable remedy for this.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman