Summary: Mr X complained about how the Council responded to two child safeguarding reports about his children in 2020. There was no fault in how the Council investigated Mr X’s safeguarding reports, but there was fault in how the Council caused Mr X to miss part of a child in need meeting. The Council should apologise, review its procedures and issue reminders to its staff.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains about how the Council responded to two child safeguarding reports about his children in 2020. He says the Council:
• failed to properly investigate the concerns about the safety of his children;
• produced inaccurate and biased reports about the incidents;
• ignored or disregarded his views as father of his children;
• excluded him from meetings; and
• failed to properly respond to his concerns and complaints.
2. As a result, Mr X says he experienced significant distress and worry. He wants the Council to independently review how it responded to his concerns, review the reports and correct them.

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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. 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)
5. 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

6. I considered the information Mr X provided and discussed the complaint with him.
7. I considered the Council’s comments on the complaint and the supporting information it provided.
8. 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

Child protection and child in need plans

9. Councils have a duty to make enquiries where it believes a child is suffering or is likely to suffer ‘significant harm’. Significant harm covers the risk of physical, sexual, emotional abuse or neglect. The enquiries must find out the child’s situation and to decide whether protective action is required. (Children Act 1989, section 47)
10. The Children Act 1989 says the child’s needs and welfare are paramount and the needs and wishes of the child should be put first. Councils must consider a child’s views to the extent a child can express them.
11. Councils must promote the welfare of children within their area who are ‘in need’ and must promote their upbringing by their families by providing a range of services suitable to those children’s needs. (Children Act 1989, section 17(1))
12. A child is ‘in need’ if they are unlikely to achieve or maintain a reasonable standard of health or development without a council providing suitable services. Development means physical, intellectual, emotional, social or behavioural development.
13. Where a council considers a child is in need, it should assess those needs and produce a Child in Need (CIN) plan to meet them. Council should review CIN plans regularly and should involve the views of both the children, parents and any relevant professionals.

The Council’s complaints procedure

14. The Council has a two stage complaints procedure:
15. Stage 1 – Acknowledgement within two working days and a response by the relevant service within 10 working days.
16. Stage 2 – A review by the Council’s complaints team. Acknowledgement of the request for a review within two working days and a full response within 25 working days.
17. However, complaints about individual members of staff are investigated by the staff member’s line manager. There is no Stage 2 review for staff conduct complaints.

What happened

18. Mr X is the father of two children, F and G. He shares custody of F and G with his ex-partner, Miss Y.
19. In mid-2020, Mr X reported a physical altercation between F and Miss Y’s new partner, Mr Z. The Council immediately spoke to both children, held a strategy meeting with the police and decided to make child protection enquiries under section 47 of the Children Act.
20. The Council spoke again to the children, and to Miss Y and Mr Z about the incident. The police investigated and decided to take no further action. The Council decided the children were not at risk of harm, but that a written agreement between the parties involved would be helpful.
21. The Council had difficulty reaching an agreement with Mr X and Miss Y. Based on the evidence it gathered, the Council had concerns the relationship between Mr X and Miss Y might be harmful for F and G’s development. It decided both children were ‘in need’ and produced a Child in Need plan. This focused on supporting F and G’s emotional needs, and helping Mr X and Miss Y to communicate with each other better.
22. The Council reviewed the CIN plan around every six weeks after it made it. The reviews involved meetings between the allocated social worker and the children, and included Mr X, Miss Y and relevant professionals, such as staff from the children’s schools.
23. All reviews were online meetings, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. At the second review, Mr X told the social worker he had not received joining instructions for the meeting. The social worker told Mr X they did not know how to resolve this and was busy chairing the meeting. Miss Y offered to send Mr X the link, to which the social worker agreed, but Mr X did not receive it. Mr X was able to join the meeting sometime later, but this was after the meeting had heard from the school staff.
24. Later that evening, Mr X realised that Miss Y had left F and G alone at home. He told the social worker by email, who replied saying they would investigate Mr X’s concerns.
25. The following day, Mr X asked the social worker not to investigate his report. However, the social worker decided it was a safeguarding concern, so the Council investigated. It held a strategy meeting with the police, and decided the Council would start another section 47 child protection investigation.
26. The Council spoke again to F and G, both at Miss Y and Mr X’s home. Again, the Council’s view was that the children were not at risk of harm, but that how Mr X and Miss Y communicated with each other was harmful. It decided to keep the CIN plan and offer co-parenting support to Mr X and Mrs Y.
27. The Council reviewed the CIN plans three further times, until early 2021. At this point, the Council was satisfied there had been no further concerning incidents and that both F and G had been offered suitable support. However, the offers of co-parenting support had not been successful. Despite this, the Council decided to end the CIN plan.
28. Just before the Council ended the CIN plan, Mr X complained about the second section 47 report, that the social worker had not listened to him as a father and was biased towards him. Mr X chased the Council for a response around a month later.
29. The Council apologised for the delay and explained a senior manager had reviewed the case and did not uphold Mr X’s complaint. The Council told Mr X he could approach the Ombudsman, which he did.

My findings

The safeguarding process and reports

30. It is not our role to decide if F and G are at risk, ‘in need’ or what support the Council should provide; that is the Council’s responsibility. Our role is to assess whether the Council made its decisions properly.
31. The evidence shows the Council followed the correct process when it the safeguarding reports. It held initial strategy meetings, made enquiries, spoke to the children and parents, and considered the evidence before making decisions. Since the decisions were made without fault, we cannot question the Council’s professional judgement about what action to take.
32. The section 47 investigation reports contain statements of what the children and both parents told the social workers. Mr X does not agree with many of these statements. However, I have seen no evidence the social workers accepted at face value any negative statements about Mr X or that the social worker was biased against him. The evidence shows the social workers weighed up the conflicting statements and views and kept a focus on the needs of the children when reaching conclusions based on their professional judgement and experience. There was no evidence of fault in how the Council prepared the reports.
33. Similarly, there is no evidence the Council ignored or disregarded Mr X’s views. The reports and minutes of the CIN meetings contain many references to Mr X’s views. Mr X had several meetings with the allocated social worker and managers from the children social care team before he made a complaint. Although the Council did not agree with many of Mr X’s views, and reached different conclusions, there is no evidence the Council ignored Mr X.

Inability to access the child in need meeting

34. The Council accepts Mr X missed the first part of the November 2020 CIN review meeting because he could not access it. There is no evidence this was intentional. However, the social worker should not have carried on with the meeting after they were aware Mr X could not access it. Asking another party, with whom Mr X had disagreements, to try to resolve the problem was not appropriate. This was fault.
35. Although Mr X missed part of the meeting where professionals from the schools shared their views, those contributions were not controversial and were consistent with those in the reviews before and after. Mr X also commented on the minutes from the meeting. Therefore, although this was frustrating to Mr X, I am satisfied missing the first part of the meeting did not cause Mr X a more significant injustice.

Response to Mr X’s complaint

36. Mr X sent a formal complaint to the Council in February 2021.
37. There is no evidence the Council acknowledged his complaint within two working days or provided a full reply within 10 working days as it should have done under its complaints policy. This was fault which caused Mr X avoidable frustration because he had to chase a response.
38. Although Mr X complained about both the social worker and the section 47 reports, the Council treated Mr X’s complaint as a complaint about a member of staff. Having considered Mr X’s complaint email, it had a significant emphasis on the actions of the social worker as an individual. Therefore, I do not find fault with the Council’s decision to consider it under that part of its complaints process and for directing Mr X to the Ombudsman without considering a stage 2 complaint.

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Agreed action

39. Within one month of my final decision the Council will apologise to Mr X for causing him to miss part of a child in need meeting and for the delays in responding to his complaint.
40. Within three months of my final decision, the Council will:
• review its approach to online children’s services meetings to ensure that, where a parent tells the Council they cannot access the meeting, the problem is resolved before the meeting continues; and
• provide suitable training / reminders to staff of the reviewed approach.

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Final decision

41. I have completed my investigation. There was no fault in how the Council investigated Mr X’s safeguarding reports but there was fault in how the Council caused Mr X to miss part of a child in need meeting. The Council should apologise, review its procedures and issue reminders to its staff.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman