Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about children services actions. It is unlikely we would find the fault he alleges has caused the injustice he alleges, nor could we achieve the outcome he seeks. And there are other bodies more suited to some aspects.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Mr X, complains about children services actions towards him. He says it worsened his ex-partner’s behaviour towards him and caused him stress.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council did. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
3. We cannot investigate complaints about the police’s action in investigating or preventing crime. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5, paragraph 2, as amended)
4. We normally expect someone to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner if they have a complaint about data protection. However, we may decide to investigate if we think there are good reasons. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
5. 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’. 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:
• the fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• the injustice is not significant enough to justify the cost of our involvement, or
• it is unlikely we could add to any previous investigation by the Council, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants, or
• there is another body better placed to consider this complaint. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered the information Mr X provided with his complaint and the Council’s replies which it provided. I considered Mr X’s comments on a draft version of this decision.

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What I found

7. In January 2019, the Council called a child protection conference to discuss the care arrangement and welfare of Mr X’s five children. The conference recommended the children have a child protection plan. Mr X says the Police did not attend this meeting, nor did a domestic violence key worker.
8. The Council says it invited the Police but they could not attend. They did provide a report. It is unlikely we would find fault in the Council’s actions on this.
9. The Council has apologised and accepted that it did not, and should have, invited the domestic violence key worker.
10. Mr X says if the Police and his domestic violence key worker had attended the child protection conferences then it is likely his ex-partner’s behaviour towards him would have been better. The Council has no direct control over a parent’s behaviour. We could not say the mother’s behaviour was as a direct result of the police and domestic violence worker not being at the conferences.
11. Mr X says he did not receive the Council’s social worker’s report in advance of review conference in March 2019. The Council has since accepted Mr X did not receive the report in advance and apologised. It says the meeting discussed the report and he was able to contribute to that discussion. Mr X says as he had not had the report in advance he could not comment on it. It is unlikely our investigation could achieve more for the late report than the apology already given.
12. Mr X says the social worker’s report to the meetings in 2019 were inaccurate. He says it says he was the perpetrator of domestic violence and it said he had been arrested for an allegation of rape. The Council says there was an allegation of rape and he was involved in a relationship which had domestic violence in it. It will not amend its reports in the way Mr X wants. Mr X says he would like the reports scrapped and replaced. We are unlikely to recommend the outcome Mr X seeks. Mr X’s comments are in the records with the disputed material. Any person reading those records will see his views.
13. Also Mr X has the right to request records are ‘rectified’. This means any factual inaccuracies are corrected. If the Council refuses to do so, he can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Parliament set up the ICO to consider data protection disputes which includes ‘right to rectification’ disputes. The ICO is better placed than us to consider if the Council should change its records particularly because there are complex exemptions for child protection case files.
14. Mr X says the Council failed to properly check the background of his ex-partner’s new partner. He says when a full check was carried out months later, it transpired the person had convictions for sexual offences. There is no suggestion here Mr X was caused any direct personal injustice by the allegation of fault he makes.
15. Mr X says the social worker allocated to his family coerced his children’s mother. He believes they may have been involved in concealing crimes and may have committee crimes against him. We cannot investigate the involvement in any officer in a crime.
16. Our role is to investigate the actions of the Council as a corporate body, not to hold a single officer accountable. If Mr X has concerns about the professionalism or integrity of an individual social worker, it is reasonable to expect him to report his concerns to their professional body, Social Work England.

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Final decision

17. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because it is unlikely we could find Mr X has been caused the injustice he has claimed by the faults he claims, we could not achieve the outcomes he seeks nor investigate crimes. Social Work England is better placed to consider his complaint about a social worker’s professionalism.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman