Summary: Mr X complains that the Council failed to adequately safeguard his son. He also says the Council’s complaint handling was poor. Based on the evidence seen to date, the Council is at fault in respect of its complaint handling. The Council has agreed to apologise for this and provide a financial remedy for the injustice caused by a delayed risk assessment.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I refer to here as Mr X, states that the Council did not properly safeguard his son, B, from his son’s mother, Y. He states the Council:
1. Failed to carry out a timely risk assessment on his son or adequately communicate with Mr X (the Council accepted it was at fault and apologized before the Ombudsman’s involvement);
2. Failed to adequately respond to concerns about his son’s social worker;
3. Failed to safeguard B from his mother who had problems with alcohol abuse, wrongly told Mr X that none of its assessments had found his son was cared for by his mother in an intoxicated state; failed to act when he raised concerns about bruising on his son; and
4. Failed to properly consider his complaints.

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What I have investigated

2. I have investigated Mr X’s complaints as detailed above. I have not investigated Mr X’s complaints about contact with his son as this is being considered by the courts and is out of jurisdiction. I have not investigated a complaint about the content of a social worker’s telephone call as this has already been investigated by Social Work England.

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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. 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. I spoke to Mr X and considered information provided by Mr X and the Council. I shared my draft decision with both parties and considered their comments before finalising my decision.

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What I found

6. Mr X has a baby son, B, with Y. In 2020, when B was less than a year old, the police were called to B’s family home due to an argument between Mr X and Y. The Council was concerned about domestic violence between Mr X and Y and the potential impact of this on B. Mr X and Y denied this, but the Council decided to hold a child protection investigation. These are investigations carried out by Councils when they consider a child may be at risk of significant harm. The Council then called a meeting of professionals who collectively decided to put B on a child protection plan. This is a plan that sets out what needs to be done to ensure a child who is deemed to be at risk of significant harm is kept safe.
7. In October 2020 Mr X complained to the Council about his son’s social worker and a lack of contact with his son. The Council accepted there had been a delay in carrying out a risk assessment around Mr X’s contact with B. Mr X did not have contact with his son for 12 weeks as a result. The Council also accepted there had been several cancelled appointments and Mr X had not been involved in meetings concerning B. The Council offered an apology and said it had fallen short of expected standards.
8. Mr X began contact with B, supervised by a family member. In early 2021 Mr says a new social worker advised him not to return B to his mother and to seek an order from the court about where B should live. Mr X was later arrested after an allegation by Y and B was removed from the family home and returned to Y. Y then ended contact between Mr X and B.

Complaints about the social worker

9. Mr X complained to the Council about the social worker’s advice which he said had led to Y stopping contact. He also said the Council had failed to respond to concerns he had raised about the social worker’s actions while working for a different council.
10. In its stage one response the Council said: "From reading the child's file I am aware that [the social worker] advised you to apply for a child arrangement order in respect of [B]”. It said the social worker’s risk assessment changed after becoming aware of the text messages from the complainant to Y. The Council partially upheld Mr X’s complaints about the social worker but did not specify which parts of his complaints it was upholding.
11. The Council shared the social worker’s records with me. These state that the social worker advised Mr X that the Council could not become involved in private law matters. The records also say that when Mr X later stated that he had acted on the social worker’s advice in making a court application, the social worker clarified that he had not advised this, only reminded Mr X that he had parental responsibility.
12. The social worker’s notes do not match Mr X’s recollection of the advice or the complaint’s manager’s description of what happened. I asked the Council to share the document it had read in B’s file which said the social worker had advised Mr X to apply for a child arrangement order. I also asked it to be more specific about the parts of the complaint it had upheld. The Council said it was unable to provide a response as the person who compiled the stage one response had left its employment. The social worker had also left the Council’s employment.
13. Mr X said the social worker changed his approach towards him when Mr X asked questions about the social worker’s activities prior to joining the Council.
14. The Council advised Mr X to contact the regulator, Social Work England, with his concerns about the social worker’s fitness to practice and prior activities.

Analysis

15. In my view the Council offered an inadequate remedy for the initial social worker’s delay in carrying out a risk assessment and failure to involve Mr X in meetings. The Council has agreed to pay Mr X £200 to remedy this fault, which caused injustice in the form of delayed contact and exclusion from involvement in decisions about his child.
16. It is not possible for me to reach a decision on the second social worker’s advice to Mr X. This is because Mr X, the stage one complaint response and the social worker’s notes all provide different accounts of what was said. The Council’s response should be consistent with the documentary record, or it should be able to explain any inconsistency. The Council is at fault and has caused injustice to Mr X who has received a response to his complaint for which there is no available evidential basis. The Council has agreed to apologise for its poor complaint handling.
17. The Council is not at fault for failing to engage in discussions about the social worker’s activities prior to him starting work for the Council. The Council was correct to advise Mr X to take his fitness to practice concerns to Social Work England.

Failure to safeguard B

18. Mr X complained that B was not being properly supervised in his mother’s care, alleged that she abused alcohol and said the Council had failed to respond to photographs of bruising on B. Mr X told me the Council had minimised Y’s alcohol problems and put his son at risk. The Council’s position is that Y drinks occasionally but not excessively. This is supported by considerable evidence, including monitoring visits to Y.
19. Mr X was also unhappy with a statement in the Council’s complaint response that none of its assessments had identified that B had been cared for by his mother while she was in an intoxicated state (it said it would continue to monitor the situation).
20. Mr X pointed to a report by the second social worker which found Y had consumed “three large vodkas” while at home. A report by the police who attended late that evening found Y was “not heavily intoxicated” and that B was in bed. Mr X also said a social worker had informed him Y was intoxicated on another occasion, but the Council said it had no record of this.
21. Mr X also said the Council had failed to act on photos of bruising seen on his son. The Council told me it only became aware of the photographs during the complaints process and that its safeguarding team had not received them. Mr X provided evidence his mother sent the photos to the safeguarding team before he began the complaints process. The Council told me that when it became aware of the photos it satisfied itself, based on the text messages accompanying the photographs, that the injury was accidental.

Analysis

22. There is no evidence that B was put at risk. Y was monitored and there is no evidence that she was abusing alcohol.
23. In my view the evidence Y was intoxicated while in charge of B is inconclusive and the Council’s statement therefore correct. The social worker’s report suggests she may have been drunk, given the volume of alcohol consumed, and the police report said only that she was not “heavily” intoxicated, leaving room for the possibility that she was intoxicated but not heavily. However there is no conclusive evidence of intoxication. Consumption of alcohol does not necessarily lead to intoxication.
24. The Council was at fault in that it did not respond to Mr X’s mother about the photos of the bruising. However, there is no evidence that B was put at risk or of injustice to Mr X.

Complaints handling

25. Mr X complained that the Council had not handled his complaint well. The Council decided not to use the statutory children’s complaints process, which is a three-stage process for hearing complaints about children’s services. Complaints about child protection investigations are exempt from this process.
26. The Council’s corporate complaints process is a two-stage process, with a review by an independent manager or officer at stage two. The Council considered the complaint at stage one but denied Mr X a stage two review until after court proceedings had finished. It said that matters covered in the complaint were “inextricably linked” to the subject of contact between Mr X and B, which was being considered by the courts.

Analysis

27. The Council’s complaint handling could have been improved, as it is unclear at times whether Mr X was receiving formal responses to his emails. In addition, the stage one response was incompatible with the social worker’s notes as discussed above. In my view Mr X’s safeguarding complaints could have been investigated at stage two and could have been separated from the subject of contact.
28. This is fault by the Council, which caused injustice to Mr X, whose complaint was not resolved as early as it might have been. The Council has agreed to make an apology to Mr X.

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Agreed action

29. The Council has agreed that within one month of my final decision it will:
1. Pay Mr X £200 for delay in carrying out a risk assessment and failing to invite him to meetings; and
2. Apologise to Mr X for poor complaint handling.

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Final decision

30. I have completed my investigation with a finding of fault, causing injustice. The Council has agreed a financial remedy and an apology.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman