Summary: Mr X complained about the Council’s involvement with his family between 2016 and 2019, and how the Council handled his complaint. There was fault in how the Council investigated Mr X’s original complaint which caused avoidable distress, time and trouble to him. While the Council apologised to Mr X and offered a financial remedy this did not properly recognise the effects on him. The Council agreed to make a larger financial payment to Mr X and to complete the service improvements it previously agreed to. We were satisfied this remedy was suitable, so we completed our investigation.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained about the Council’s involvement with his family between 2016 and 2019 following allegations made by his ex-wife. He said the Council:
• failed to properly assess the truth of the allegations and any risk he posed to his daughter;
• took his daughter into care and placed her in foster care unnecessarily;
• failed to properly investigate his concerns about the safety of his daughter while she was living with her mother and keep him informed about its investigations; and
• should not have considered placing his daughter with family members in another country.
2. Mr X said this caused significant distress to him and his daughter, loss of earnings and legal costs. He was not satisfied with the outcome of the Council’s investigation into his complaint or that it had taken the actions it agreed to in its final response to him. He wanted the Council to make the service improvements it agreed to make and to pay him a financial remedy for the distress, lost earnings and legal costs he said he incurred.

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What I have investigated

3. I have investigated:
1. delays in the Council’s complaint investigation;
2. the impact of the Council’s failure to consider parts of Mr X’s original complaint;
3. whether the Council properly remedied the injustice identified by its complaint investigation; and
4. the action the Council took following the statutory complaints process.
4. I am satisfied these issues are separate enough from the other parts of Mr X’s complaint to allow me to investigate them. The final section of this statement contains my reasons for not investigating the rest of the complaint.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

5. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
6. 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)
7. 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 would find fault, or it is unlikely we could add to any previous investigation by the Council. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
8. We cannot investigate a complaint about the start of court action or what happened in court. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5/5A, paragraph 1/3, as amended)
9. 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)
10. This complaint involves events that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Government introduced a range of new and frequently updated rules and guidance during this time. We can consider whether the council followed the relevant legislation, guidance and our published “Good Administrative Practice during the response to COVID-19”.

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How I considered this complaint

11. I considered the information provided by Mr X and discussed the complaint with him.
12. I considered the Council’s comments on the complaint.
13. Mr X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered their comments before making a final decision.

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What I found

Children’s social care complaints

14. 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 we consider that investigation was flawed. However, we may look at whether a council properly considered the findings and recommendations of the independent investigation.
15. The law sets out how long each stage of the statutory complaint procedure should take.
• Stage 2 should take no more than 65 working days from the date the details of the complaint are agreed in writing.
• A review panel at stage 3 should be held within 30 days.
• The review panel should report its findings within 5 working days.
• The Council should respond to the review panel’s findings within 15 working days.
16. The Government amended the time limits for actions at stage 3 from 24 April 2020, due to the impacts of COVID-19. From this date, councils had to act ‘as soon as was reasonably practicable’ if they could not comply with the usual timescales.

What happened

17. The Council’s social services team became involved with Mr X and his family in 2016. The Council took Mr X’s daughter into care between late 2016 and early 2018. The police decided the allegations which led to the Council’s involvement were unfounded and Mr X’s daughter returned to his care in 2018.
18. In mid-2019, Mr X complained to the Council about its involvement with his family and the impact this had on them.
19. The Council investigated Mr X’s complaint under the statutory complaints process. The important times in the Council’s handling of Mr X’s complaint are:
• Late August 2019 – the Council appointed an Investigating Officer (IO) and Independent Person (IP);
• Early November 2019 – the IO agreed the statement of complaint with Mr X;
• Late February 2020 – the IO produced their report and recommendations;
• Mid-April 2020 – the Council wrote to Mr X with its stage 2 decision;
• Late May 2020 – Mr X told the Council why he wanted a stage 3 review;
• Late September 2020 – the Council held the stage 3 review panel and the review panel provided its report and recommendations in writing; and
• Late October 2020 – the Council sent Mr X its final response to the stage 3 review panel.
20. Following the stage 2 investigation, the Council upheld parts of Mr X’s complaint. It accepted that:
• it had not kept satisfactory notes of meetings Mr X attended; and
• it had failed to ensure Mr X felt included and listened to during the process, particularly when he raised his own concerns about the welfare of his daughter.
21. It also decided that it could not investigate some parts of Mr X’s complaint, because it would need to share information about other people with Mr X that it was not allowed to share.
22. Mr X asked the Council to arrange a review panel under stage 3 of the procedure, which it did.
23. A review panel agreed the Council’s record keeping should have been better and the Council had not properly investigated Mr X’s concerns about the welfare of his daughter at the time. It also decided the Council could, and should, have investigated all parts of Mr X’s original complaint.
24. Following the stage 3 review panel, the Council apologised to Mr X for the faults it had accepted. It also agreed to:
• investigate those parts of Mr X’s complaint it had failed to consider at stage 2;
• share Mr X’s experiences with the Council’s social care teams to help them learn and improve;
• ensure that it records key meetings properly in future; and
• look into the quality of parenting and psychological assessments carried out on its behalf.
25. Mr X complained to the Ombudsman in November 2020 because he was not satisfied with the Council’s final response.

My findings

26. For the reasons given at the end of this statement, I have not re-investigated the matters already considered by the Council through the statutory complaint process. Instead, I have considered how the Council handled the investigation and whether the Council has properly remedied any related injustice.

a) Delays in the statutory complaint process

27. Stage 2 of the statutory complaint process should take no more than 65 working days. In Mr X’s case, the process took 117 working days, almost twice the time allowed. This was fault which caused Mr X avoidable distress and prolonged the doubt over whether the Council had acted properly.
28. Although the Council explained the delays were because the investigating officer was trying to contact staff who no longer worked for the Council, I am not satisfied this fully accounts for the delay. The Council also accepted it failed to keep Mr X informed about the delays.
29. At stage 3 of the process:
• the Council should normally have arranged a review panel within 30 working days of Mr X giving his reasons for asking for one; by 7 July 2020. However, the panel did not take place until almost 60 working days later than it should;
• the panel reported its findings within the 5 working days required; and
• the Council responded to the panel’s findings within the required 15 working days.
30. The Council explained to Mr X that it could not hold a review panel within the normal time limits because of the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. However, the Council has not provided any evidence to show why it was not possible to arrange the panel sooner than it did or that it arranged the meeting as soon as reasonably practicable. This was a further avoidable delay and was fault
31. The Council’s original apology for these delays was not a suitable remedy. Considering the length of the delays, the failure to keep Mr X informed and the avoidable distress and uncertainty this caused him, the Council should pay Mr X £200 for the delays during the statutory complaint process.

b) The Council’s failure to consider parts of Mr X’s complaint

32. The Council accepted the investigating officer was wrong to decide there were parts of Mr X’s original complaint they could not investigate. It apologised to Mr X, and agreed to re-investigate.
33. The Council’s failure to fully investigate Mr X’s complaint when he first made it resulted in Mr X having to go through the statutory complaints process a second time. I am not satisfied the Council’s apology was a suitable remedy for the avoidable distress, time and trouble of having to go through another investigation process. Considering the distress this second investigation caused Mr X, the Council should pay him £250 to recognise this avoidable distress, time and trouble.

c) The Council’s remedy for the upheld parts of his complaint

34. In its original investigation, the Council accepted it had failed to act on Mr X’s concerns about his daughter’s wellbeing and had failed to communicate with him properly. It apologised to Mr X for these failures which had caused him significant distress and worry.
35. I am not satisfied the Council’s apology was a suitable remedy. Considering these concerns related to the welfare of his daughter, the circumstances at the time and the significant distress and worry this caused Mr X, the Council should pay him £250 to recognise the impact of this fault.

d) Actions by the Council following its investigation

36. In its final letter to Mr X in October 2020, the Council said it would take the actions listed in paragraph 24. However, the Council only contacted Mr X to start its investigation into the outstanding parts of his original complaint in early May 2021, after I made enquiries of the Council.
37. In its response to my enquiries the Council apologised for overlooking its commitment to start the investigation. It explained it had staffing problems and changes in management but accepted this was not an excuse for failing to investigate sooner. The Council proposed to pay Mr X £150 to recognise the avoidable distress this delay caused Mr X. It also proposed to pay Mr X £150 to recognise the avoidable time and trouble caused by him having to complain to the Council and the Ombudsman.
38. We would usually expect councils to complete agreed actions within one month. So, the Council should have contacted Mr X to start the investigation it promised by the end of November 2020. However, it did not contact him until May 2021; five months later. And this was only after our intervention. Considering the length of this delay and the extra distress the avoidable delay caused to Mr X, I am however satisfied the Council’s offer of £150 is a suitable remedy for the distress caused by this delay.
39. I am also satisfied the Council’s offer of £150 is a suitable remedy for the time and trouble caused to Mr X because he had to complain to the Council and the Ombudsman.
40. The Council has not provided any evidence it acted on the other commitments it made to Mr X in its final letter to him. I have seen no evidence it:
• shared Mr X’s experiences with its social care teams;
• reviewed its processes around case recording to identify any improvements required; or
• reviewed the quality of the parenting and psychological assessments it commissions.

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Agreed action

41. The Council agreed that, within one month of my final decision, it would:
• apologise to Mr X for the further delays in handling his complaint; and
• pay Mr X £1,000 for the distress, inconvenience, time and trouble identified in the ‘My findings’ section of my decision.
42. The Council agreed that, within three months of my final decision, it would:
• share the learning points it identified in its October 2020 letter to Mr X with relevant teams at the Council;
• review its children’s services case recording procedures and make any necessary improvements it identifies; and
• review its process for commissioning parenting and psychological assessments and make any necessary improvements it identifies.
43. The Council agreed to provide evidence it has completed these actions to both Mr X and the Ombudsman.

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Final decision

44. I have completed my investigation and uphold parts of Mr X’s complaint. There was fault in how the Council investigated Mr X’s original complaint, which caused avoidable distress, time and trouble to him. While the Council apologised to Mr X and offered a financial remedy, this did not properly recognise the effects on him. The Council agreed to make a larger financial payment to Mr X and to complete service improvements it previously agreed to.

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Parts of the complaint that I did not investigate

45. I did not investigate those parts of Mr X’s complaint the Council did not uphold during its original investigation. This is because:
• There is no evidence the Council’s investigation or its findings were unsound. I appreciate Mr X does not agree with the conclusions of the Council’s investigation. However, it is unlikely we would find further fault with how the Council investigated Mr X’s complaint; and
• parts of the Council’s original investigation covered events that happened during court proceedings, which the law does not allow me to consider.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman