Summary: the Council failed to communicate its decision making to Miss B clearly when carrying out a safeguarding investigation, failed to provide her with adequate support, delayed providing her with reports and minutes and delayed dealing with her complaint. There is no evidence of delay in the section 47 process. Procedural changes already introduced by the Council are satisfactory, alongside an apology and payment to Miss B.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Miss B, complained the Council:
• provided conflicting advice about where she could reside following her daughter’s disclosure;
• spoke to her daughter without her consent;
• failed to explain when it changed its decision about her partner having contact with her children;
• failed to provide her with adequate support;
• failed to communicate properly with her;
• delayed interviewing her daughter;
• delayed providing her with paperwork before and following meetings;
• failed to visit her and the children while they were on a child protection plan;
• delayed completing the child protection process which meant her children remained on child protection plans for longer than they should have; and
• delayed dealing with her complaint.
2. Miss B and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

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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. The Ombudsman cannot question whether a Council’s decision is right or wrong simply because Miss B disagrees with it. He must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended and 34(3))
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. As part of the investigation, I have:
• considered the complaint and Miss B's comments;
• made enquiries of the Council and considered the comments and documents the Council provided.
6. Miss B and the Council now have an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I will consider their comments 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. Section 47 of the Children Act 1989 says when a local authority receives a referral and identifies that a child may be suffering, or likely to suffer, significant harm it must make any enquiries it considers necessary to decide whether it should take any action to safeguard or promote the child’s welfare.
9. The Council follows the process set out in the Knowsley Safeguarding Children Partnership Procedures Manual (the manual) when dealing with safeguarding issues. This says the Council must hold a child protection conference after a section 47 enquiry to safeguard and promote the welfare of a child who is suspected of, or likely to be, suffering significant harm. The manual says the initial child protection conference should take place within 15 working days of the first strategy meeting. Review conferences will then take place with the first child protection review conference held within three months of the date of the initial child protection conference. Further reviews should be held at intervals of not more than six months for as long as the child remains the subject of a child protection plan.
10. The manual says the review conferences will consider whether the child is continuing to suffer, or is likely to suffer, significant harm, and review developmental progress against the child protection plan outcomes. It will also consider whether the child protection plan should continue or be changed.
11. The manual says if a review conference does not consider the child is continuing to suffer, or likely to suffer, significant harm the child should no longer be the subject of a child protection plan. The manual says the conference should then consider what continuing support services may benefit the child and family and make recommendations accordingly.
12. The manual says child in need and child protection visits are an essential part of what the Council does and gives it an opportunity to see children in their home environment with the people who care for them.
13. The manual says children's social care should provide all conferences with a written report that summarises and analyses the information obtained during the assessment. The report should be provided to parents at least two working days in advance of the initial conferences and a minimum of 5 working days before review conferences to enable any factual errors to be corrected and the family to comment on the content.
14. The manual says the conference record should be sent to all those who attended or were invited to the conference within 20 working days of the conference.

What happened

15. The Council became involved with Miss B’s family on 5 March 2019 when it received a referral from Miss B’s daughter’s school. A Council social worker spoke to Miss B and her partner to tell them about the allegation, which involved Miss B’s partner. The Council’s social worker told Miss B she would speak to her daughter at school. Following that discussion the Council told Miss B and her partner they could not return to the family home. Miss B stayed in another family member’s home where there were other children.
16. The Council held a strategy meeting the following day and decided to begin a section 47 investigation. Members of the strategy meeting were satisfied Miss B was not a risk to her children and she was allowed to return home.
17. The Council allocated the case to a social worker on 7 March to complete an assessment. Shortly after that the social worker went off work sick.
18. Miss B and her partner telephoned the Council on 14 March to find out what was happening. The Council explained it needed to allocate a new social worker due to the continuing absence of the allocated social worker. Another social worker took over the case on 18 March. The new social worker contacted Miss B and agreed for the Council to supervise contact between Miss B’s partner and his children.
19. The Council’s social worker visited Miss B on 21 March. Miss B reported not knowing what was happening and said she had not received any contact from the police.
20. The initial child protection conference took place on 27 March. The Council provided Miss B with a copy of the report shortly before the conference. Miss B and her partner attended the initial child protection conference where members decided to place Miss B’s children on child protection plans under the category of sexual harm. Conference members decided Miss B’s partner should not have contact with his daughter until the police had completed its investigation.
21. The Council’s social worker visited Miss B on 27 March and 4 April. A core group meeting took place on 8 April and the social worker visited Miss B on 10 April.
22. The police interviewed Miss B’s daughter on 1 May. The police decided to take no further action. That meant Miss B’s partner could now have contact with his children.
23. A core group meeting took place on 3 May and the social worker visited Miss B on 7 May.
24. The Council made enquiries with Barnardos, NSPCC and the child psychologist working with Miss B’s daughter to see whether they could provide any support to Miss B. None were able to do so.
25. The Council’s social worker visited Miss B on 24 May to discuss completing a parenting assessment. Miss B did not consider that necessary as she had looked after her children on her own since the investigation began with no concerns raised about her parenting.
26. The Council held a core group meeting on 30 May. This recorded the parents would receive four sessions on managing their daughter and her behaviours and emotional well-being. Miss B said she did not want to take part in the proposed parenting assessment as she did not consider it required. Miss B reported the father had returned to the family home full-time.
27. A review child protection conference took place on 14 June and decided the children should remain on child protection plans as Miss B’s daughter was still making sexualised comments which led to unanswered questions about whether she had suffered significant harm or trauma. The conference concluded a further assessment was required. Following the meeting the Council decided for social workers to visit in pairs because the parents were angry about the process.
28. Miss B put in a complaint on 21 June and asked for a new social worker. The Council allocated a new social worker on 25 June.
29. A core group meeting took place on 27 June. Miss B expressed concern the Council had not visited to see the children since the last review meeting and questioned why that was if the Council considered the children at risk.
30. A social worker contacted Miss B to arrange a visit at the beginning of July. Miss B told the Council she did not want any further contact from children’s social care.
31. A core group meeting took place on 22 July, which Miss B could not attend.
32. The Council received an update from Miss B’s health visitor on 1 August. She described no concerns with the presentation of the children. The health visitor suggested counselling for Miss B through Listening Ear.
33. The Council held a core group meeting on 27 August.
34. The Council held a review child protection conference on 27 September. Conference members decided to end social services involvement to reduce any further emotional impact on Miss B’s daughter.
35. Miss B contacted the Council on 28 October to raise concerns about not receiving the additional counselling recommended. Miss B confirmed on 30 October Listening Ear had telephoned her and offered an appointment.
36. Miss B put in a stage two complaint on 23 December 2019. The elements of complaint were agreed on 31 January 2020. The Council wrote Miss B on 1 March to tell her the deadline for completion of the report was 29 April.
37. On 29 June 2020 the Council wrote to Miss B to apologise for the delay completing the stage two investigation, referencing the impact of Covid 19. The Council said it would send a stage two response by the end of August. The Council sent the stage two adjudication letter to Miss B on 27 August. The Council upheld most of the complaint and put in place the recommendations of the stage two investigator, which were:
• when social workers see children as part of a child protection enquiry they will clearly explain the reasons to families and request a record they have sought consent from parents to see and speak to the children alone;
• social workers will keep parents up-to-date with actions and decisions;
• team managers will inform parents when a social worker is absent and a new social worker is allocated;
• the Council will ensure reports are provided three days before meetings;
• the Council will not close a case until support agreed for families is provided;
• social workers will escalate a case to the team manager where there is a delay in the police interviewing the child. That will then be escalated to the head of service to contact the police if there is further delay. A report will then be made to the safeguarding partnership if there is no reasonable explanation for the delay;
• the Council will disseminate learning from this case to social workers, managers and police officers; and
• the Council offered £250 to Miss B to reflect her time and trouble.

Analysis

38. Miss B says the Council provided her with conflicting advice about where she could stay following her daughter’s disclosure. Miss B says the Council allowed her to stay in another family member’s home where children were present and she therefore does not understand why the Council considered it inappropriate for her to remain at home with her own daughter. The Council acknowledges it did not keep any evidence of the advice it gave to Miss B about where she could stay and whether she could stay in a household with children. Failure to keep proper records is fault, as is failure to consider whether it was appropriate for Miss B to stay in a household with children. I understand why that would have caused Miss B confusion about why she was being asked to leave her own home.
39. I understand it would also have been confusing to Miss B to have been told she could not stay at home with her children on 5 March but then be allowed home the following day. However, I am satisfied that decision followed a strategy meeting on 6 March where those present were satisfied Miss B was not a risk to her children. As that decision was not made until the strategy meeting the following day I cannot say the Council was at fault or that it gave Miss B conflicting information.
40. Miss B says the Council spoke to her daughter on her own without her consent. The Council accepts it did not seek Miss B’s consent before talking to her daughter alone, although the documentary records show the Council told Miss B it intended to speak to her daughter. Failure to obtain Miss B’s consent is fault.
41. Miss B says the Council failed to explain why it initially required her partner to have supervised contact with his children, then said he could only have contact with his son and then decided no contact should take place at all. The evidence I have seen satisfies me the decision to change the contact from supervised to contact only with the son was a decision reached by the initial child protection conference. I am satisfied Miss B and her partner were both present at that meeting. I am therefore satisfied Miss B was involved in the discussion which led to the decision to restrict her partner’s contact to contact with his son only. I therefore could not say the Council failed to make Miss B aware of the reasons for the change from supervised contact to contact only between her partner and their son.
42. I have seen no evidence though to suggest the Council told Miss B the father of the children could not have contact with either child until the police completed its investigation. The documentary records are not clear about why that decision was reached. However, the Council’s initial complaint response to Miss B records this was a decision Miss B made rather than the Council. Given the lack of documentary records detailing who made the decision to stop all contact between Miss B’s partner and both children I cannot reach a safe conclusion about this part of the complaint.
43. Miss B says the Council failed to provide her with adequate support. The evidence I have seen satisfies me the Council tried to identify some support for Miss B from Barnardos, NSPCC and the psychologist working with her daughter but was unsuccessful in doing so. I am satisfied the Council identified the need for some counselling support for Miss B. However, there was a delay putting that counselling into place and then a further delay arranging additional counselling when it was identified as required. Those delays are fault and meant Miss B was without adequate support.
44. Miss B says the Council failed to properly communicate with her which meant she had to chase the Council for updates. Miss B also says the Council referred to a second allegation about her partner but then denied saying any second allegation had been made. In terms of the communication with Miss B the Council accepts the situation was less than ideal as it had to allocate three different social workers. I am satisfied though the Council allocated one of those social workers as Miss B asked for someone else to take over the case. The Council also accepts although social workers tried to contact Miss B communication could have been better and Miss B should not have had to seek her own updates. Failure to have regular contact with Miss B and keep her up-to-date with what was happening, as far as the Council was able to share, is fault. That has clearly led to Miss B having to go to time and trouble to find out what was happening and caused her some uncertainty and distress.
45. In terms of an alleged second allegation against Miss B’s partner I have found nothing in the documentary evidence to suggest the Council told Miss B it had received a second allegation. Rather, when Miss B queried that at the review child protection conference on 14 June 2019 the Council confirmed it had shared all information and allegations made by Miss B’s daughter with the family. I therefore have no grounds to criticise the Council.
46. Miss B says the Council delayed interviewing her daughter. I believe Miss B is referring here to the police interview with her daughter, rather than the Council’s interview with her daughter as that was not delayed. There was, however, a two-month delay in the police interviewing Miss B’s daughter. While I understand Miss B’s concern I cannot hold the Council responsible for delays by the police. I am, however, satisfied the Council has introduced a process to enable it to escalate concerns about delay by the police to senior managers if this happens in future. I welcome that.
47. Miss B says the Council delayed providing her with paperwork following meetings and before meetings took place. The Council accepts it only provided Miss B with a copy of the single assessment just before the initial child protection conference. The Council accepts it should have shared the assessment with Miss B three days before the conference, although the Council’s procedure says two days. The Council says that did not happen in this case because it had to allocate a new social worker when the original social worker went off sick. While I understand the difficulties the Council faced in this case, failure to share the documentation with Miss B before the conference is fault. There was also a delay providing Miss B with a copy of the minutes of the initial child protection conference. There is no evidence the Council shared those minutes with Miss B until May 2019 given Miss B said at the core group meeting on 30 May 2019 she had not received the minutes. Failure to share the minutes of the meeting within 20 working days is fault.
48. Miss B says the Council failed to visit her and the children while the children were on a child protection plan. Miss B says this shows the Council failed in its duty of care to her children. As I said in paragraph 12, child protection visits are a part of the process when a child is on a child protection plan. I would therefore expect the Council to carry out regular child protection visits. The Council says it did not do that in this case because from April 2019 Miss B refused any further involvement as she was concerned further social work visits would increase her daughter’s distress. The Council says a psychologist agreed with that assessment.
49. I have seen nothing in the documentary evidence to suggest Miss B refused access to social workers in April 2019. Rather, the evidence I have seen satisfies me Miss B refused access in July 2019. There were, however, relatively few social work visits to Miss B before that. I am surprised about that given the Council had concerns about Miss B’s daughter. The Council has not provided a clear explanation of the reasons why. Understandably Miss B questions why the Council remained involved with her family when it was not following up to check on the children. Failure to carry out regular visits up to July 2019 is fault.
50. For the period after July 2019 Miss B had said she would not allow social workers access to her children. I understand why the Council chose not to pursue visits given the child psychologist agreed further stress for Miss B’s daughter could result in further concerning behaviour. Given the children remained on a child protection plan though I would have expected the Council to at least write to Miss B to explain it was complying with her request not to visit the children and that it would obtain information about the children’s progress through other means. Failure to do that is fault and left Miss B confused as the Council kept her children on a child protection plan. I am satisfied though the Council obtained updates from the health visitor and education professionals involved with the children. Core group meetings and review child protection conference meetings also continued where the Council received information about the children’s progress. I therefore do not consider the Council’s lack of visits resulted from its failure to consider the duty of care it had to the children but rather to reduce the impact on Miss B and her family, although it should have clearly explained that to her.
51. Miss B says the Council delayed completing the child protection process. Miss B says this meant her children remained on child protection plans for longer than they should have. I set out in paragraph 9 the target dates the Council has to meet when dealing with a child protection case. I am satisfied the Council met those targets when holding the initial child protection conference and review child protection conferences. I recognise Miss B believes the Council should have concluded the child protection process earlier and taken her children off child protection plans. However, the evidence from each review child protection conference satisfies me the Council decided not to take Miss B’s children off child protection plans until September 2019 as it had ongoing concerns about Miss B’s daughter’s presentation and the things she was saying, with no explanation as to why. The Council therefore did not consider the criteria was met to end the child protection plans. I recognise that is likely a decision Miss B strongly disagrees with. However, as I said in paragraph 3, it is not my role to comment on the merits of a decision reached without fault. As there is no fault in the Council’s consideration of whether to keep the children on a child protection plan I have no grounds to criticise it. Consequently I could not say Council delay led to Miss B’s children remaining on child protection plans for longer than they should have.
52. There have been significant delays dealing with this complaint. Miss B put in a stage two complaint in December 2019. However, the Council did not send Miss B a response until August 2020. That is considerably outside the 65 day timescale for complex cases. I recognise Covid 19 affected the Council’s ability to process complaints. Nevertheless, eight months to respond to a stage two complaint is unreasonably long and is fault. That is unlikely to have encouraged Miss B to believe the Council was taking her complaint seriously. I am satisfied though the Council has introduced a process to enable management oversight of complaints to ensure timescales are met. I welcome that.
53. In addition to the remedy the Council has offered, which I refer to in paragraph 37, I recommended the Council apologise to Miss B for the faults I have identified which caused her distress, uncertainty and frustration. I also recommended the Council pay Miss B £500 to reflect her distress and the time and trouble she had to go to due to fault by the Council. The Council has agreed to my recommendations. I do not consider it necessary to make any service improvement recommendations in this case given the Council has identified various improvements and has committed to disseminate the learning from this case to social workers and managers, which is what I would have recommended. The Council will need to provide evidence of that to the Ombudsman.

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Agreed action

54. Within one month of my decision the Council will apologise to Miss B and pay her £500.
55. Within one month of my decision the Council will provide evidence that it has disseminated the learning from this case to social workers and managers.

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Final decision

56. I have completed my investigation and found fault by the Council in part of the complaint which caused Miss B an injustice. I am satisfied the action the Council will take is sufficient to remedy that injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman