Summary: The Council was at fault for failing to properly assess
Mr B’s allegations that his ex-partner was a risk to their children. However, it has since done an assessment and found the risk to be limited, so it has remedied any injustice. It was also at fault for delaying a proper consideration of Mr B’s discrimination allegations. It has agreed to apologise and make a symbolic payment of £150 to recognise his injustice.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I refer to as Mr B, complains that the Council failed to properly consider complaints he made about his children’s social worker discriminating against him on the grounds of sex and race.
2. Mr B also complains that, after his children’s mother took their children to live with her in December 2020, the Council failed to properly assess the risk she posed to the children – including by failing to conduct satisfactory checks on her criminal history. He says this left the children at risk.
3. Mr B says the Council’s failings have caused him emotional distress, and contributed towards his having a breakdown. He wants an apology from the Council, and compensation.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. 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)
5. We cannot question whether a council’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
6. 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)
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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How I considered this complaint

8. I considered information from Mr B and the Council.
9. I considered the duties placed on the Council by the Equality Act 2010.
10. I considered the Council’s complaints policy and other staff guidance.
11. Mr 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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What I found

What should have happened?

The Equality Act 2010

12. The Equality Act provides a legal framework to protect the rights of individuals and advance equality of opportunity. It provides the UK with discrimination law which protects individuals from unfair treatment.
13. Organisations carrying out public functions under the Act – including councils – are under the duty not to discriminate against people on any of nine protected characteristics. These characteristics include race and sex.
14. The Ombudsman cannot find that a body in jurisdiction has breached the Act. However, we can find a body at fault for failing to take account of its duties.

The Council’s complaints policy

15. The Council’s corporate complaints procedure is comprised of two stages.
16. At the first stage, complainants should raise their concerns with the relevant department. They will generally receive a response within 20 working days.
17. If the complainant remains dissatisfied, they can have their complaint investigated at stage 2 by writing to the Corporate Director of the relevant department. Again, they will generally receive a response within 20 working days.
18. The Council has internal staff guidance on how to respond to corporate complaints about children’s social work. It says that, if a child protection enquiry or an assessment are in progress, it will not investigate a complaint until they are finished (although the social work team can choose to respond informally if it wants to). The complainant can restart their complaint when the assessment is complete.
19. The Council says it takes this approach because social workers need to be able to conduct assessments without interference from active complaints. It says it has done this for many years, after serious case reviews identified parents using complaints procedures to influence social workers’ decision-making. It says its approach is designed to protect children.

What happened?

The first discrimination complaint

20. In September 2020, the Council’s children’s social work department contacted
    Mr B following a domestic incident. Mr B refused to allow the social worker to complete direct work with the children, and said that she was biased in favour of his partner (whom he described as a ‘perpetrator’).
21. The Council closed the case, saying there was not enough evidence of harm to override Mr B’s lack of consent. It posted a closure letter to Mr B.
22. Before Mr B received the closure letter, he made a complaint. He repeated his claim that the social worker was biased against him. However, four days later – after receiving the case closure letter – he told the social work manager that he no longer wished to pursue the complaint. The Council closed the complaint on its system.

The second complaint

23. In November 2020, Mr B’s partner (his children’s mother) made an allegation of domestic abuse against him. The Council started a section 47 (child protection) enquiry. The case was allocated to the same social worker that Mr B had complained about. The Council’s records acknowledge Mr B’s previous complaint but say allocating the case to the same worker was in the best interests of the children.
24. Mr B, again, refused to allow the social worker to visit his children. However, the Council noted that, as this was now a section 47 enquiry (which meant there was a concern the children may be suffering significant harm), Mr B’s consent was not needed. The social worker visited the children in school anyway. Mr B made a new complaint about the social worker, saying he was suffering discrimination.
25. Shortly after this, Mr B’s (now ex-) partner took their children to live with her. Mr B called the social worker’s manager and said the social worker was sexist and racist. He said he had evidence. The manager said similar allegations had never been made about the social worker before, but she would look at any evidence he sent.
26. The day after this, the manager answered Mr B’s complaint, saying he had not provided any evidence of discriminatory behaviour by the social worker.
27. Mr B spoke to a service manager, who offered to allocate a second social worker to joint-work the case. Mr B refused.
28. Mr B then said he wanted to escalate his complaint. He said the social worker:
• minimised domestic violence towards him – despite Police evidence that he had been the victim – which would not have happened if the gender roles were reversed;
• asked him and his family, “where do you lot come from?”, which he would never have been asked if he was white; and
• bullied him by repeatedly threatening to remove his children.
29. The Council decided it could not deal with this complaint because of ongoing safeguarding action.

The third complaint

30. The Council completed an assessment in January 2021, with which Mr B was dissatisfied. He emailed the Council about this in January, and continued to do so into February. He said the assessment failed to consider the allegations he had made about his ex-partner, whom he felt was a risk to their children.
31. In early February, while communicating with the social worker’s manager about the Council’s assessment, Mr B, again, claimed the social worker was racially harassing him and subjecting him to sex discrimination. The manager arranged to meet Mr B to discuss the various issues he had raised.
32. This meeting was held on 10 February. The minutes refer to Mr B’s allegations of discrimination, but there was no consideration of them. Mr B was told on 15 February, by email, that there would be a further meeting to discuss his allegations.
33. No further correspondence was sent – or meeting held – about this matter until
    Mr B submitted a new complaint two months later.

The fourth complaint

34. Mr B submitted this complaint in April 2021. By this time his children had a new social worker; however, he remained unhappy with the Council’s responses to his allegations of discrimination.
35. The Council responded, and said Mr B’s allegations against the previous social worker were looked into and responded to by her team manager in December 2020. It said there was no evidence to substantiate the allegations. It said Mr B’s request to change the social worker was carefully considered but the Council decided this would not be in the best interests of his children.
36. Mr B was dissatisfied with this response, and asked to escalate the complaint. He said he raised further complaints about racial discrimination in February 2021 and the social worker’s manager said he would receive a response, but he did not receive one.
37. The Council sent Mr B its stage 2 complaint response in June. It acknowledged that he felt his concerns were not being heard. However, it said they were investigated by the social worker’s manager, who had concluded:
• one of the things Mr B was unhappy with (the social worker asking, “where do you come from?”) was actually about where in the UK he came from;
• there were no previous complaints about the social worker being discriminatory; and
• there was no evidence to support Mr B’s allegations.
38. The Council, in the stage 2 response, agreed that there was no evidence of discrimination. But it acknowledged that its assessment may have been ‘one-sided’, as there was little exploration of Mr B’s side of the story.
39. The Council said it should have looked into Mr B’s discrimination allegations in September, rather than shutting down the complaint. It said it would provide guidance to managers about investigating allegations of staff racism and sexism.
40. The Council also accepted that, in its assessment, it had not properly looked into Mr B’s allegations about the risk his ex-partner posed to his children. It said it would do so in a new assessment. It said Mr B should approach the Ombudsman if he remained dissatisfied.

Reassessment

41. The Council completed its new assessment in September 2021. It completed background checks on Mr B’s ex-partner and considered his allegations against her. It decided there was no significant risk to the children, and recommended the case be closed.

My findings

42. I will set out my findings for each part of Mr B’s complaint in turn.

The Council’s failure to deal with Mr B’s discrimination allegations

43. It is not my role to decide whether a social worker is (or has been) racist or sexist. What I must decide is whether the Council properly took account of its duties under the Equality Act.
44. In deciding whether it has met its duty not to discriminate against someone, I would expect the Council to properly consider any discrimination allegations made against members of its staff.
45. My view is that the Council’s complaint response of June 2021 demonstrates a satisfactory consideration of Mr B’s allegations. It also explained why the Council did not agree with him. This was the Council’s decision to make, and I see no reason to question this decision, although I accept Mr B will disagree.
46. However, there were issues with how the Council dealt with Mr B’s allegations before then.
47. Mr B withdrew his complaint in September 2020, so the Council no longer needed to deal with it. And its approach to his further complaint in December 2020 was in line with its internal staff guidance, which allows it not to investigate children’s social work complaints when there is an ongoing child protection enquiry (or an assessment).
48. However, when Mr B raised his allegations again in February 2021, the Council met with him but did not discuss the allegations. It told Mr B it would hold a further meeting with him specifically to discuss them. This meeting never took place. This was fault by the Council.
49. Although the Council did, eventually, properly consider and respond to the points Mr B raised, it is likely that its earlier maladministration caused him avoidable distress. It should take action to remedy this.

The Council’s failure to properly assess the risk Mr B’s ex-partner posed to their children

50. In its stage 2 response, the Council accepted it had not properly assessed Mr B’s allegations about his ex-partner. This was fault.
51. However, the Council said it would conduct a new assessment and consider the alleged risk properly. It did this in September 2021, and set out what appears to be a balanced analysis of the potential risks to Mr B’s children. And none of the background checks it conducted on Mr B’s ex-partner brought up anything of relevance. The Council closed the case.
52. This means that, although the Council has accepted fault, any potential injustice to Mr B and his children has already been remedied, and no further action is needed.

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Agreed actions

53. The Council has agreed to apologise to Mr B for its delay in properly considering his complaint about discrimination.
54. The Council has also agreed to make a symbolic payment of £150 to recognise Mr B’s injustice.
55. The Council has agreed to complete these actions within six weeks this decision.

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Final decision

56. The Council was at fault for failing to properly assess Mr B’s allegations that his ex-partner was a risk to their children. It was also at fault for delaying a proper consideration of Mr B’s discrimination allegations. The agreed actions remedy
    Mr B’s injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman