Nottinghamshire County Council (21 012 318)

Category : Children's care services > Child protection

Decision : Closed after initial enquiries

Decision date : 06 Jan 2022

The Ombudsman's final decision:

Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s decision to remove Miss X from its register of foster cares. There is not enough evidence of fault in the way the Council reached its decision to warrant investigation.

The complaint

  1. Miss X said the Council wrongly removed her from its fostering register using allegations overturned in a court case.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

  1. The Ombudsman investigates complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start or may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

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How I considered this complaint

  1. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
  2. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

  1. The key issue here is the difference in role and purpose between a court deciding where a child should live and a council’s safeguarding duties. The court has authority to decide where a named child or children shall live. A council has authority to decide whether there is risk to other children that would warrant a person being removed from its fostering register.
  2. In this case a court decided a child removed by the Council from Miss X’s care should be returned under a Special Guardianship Order. That is not the same thing as deciding whether Miss X was fit to continue as a foster carer. The Council could reach a decision to remove Miss X from its fostering register if, after properly considering the evidence it had, it felt there would be a risk of harm to children if it continued to make placements. The threshold for risk in safeguarding children is low, and not the same as can apply in court cases. This is because it is not focussed on establishing whether an adult has done something, still less on notions of guilt or innocence, but whether there might be a risk to a child. The issue I have considered is therefore whether the Council properly considered the evidence it had.
  3. There were three allegations the Council had previously upheld against Miss X. After the court case, the Council held a fresh meeting. The notes of the meeting quote the judge’s comments and its own findings extensively. It noted that the standard of parenting owed to a foster child, many of whom have suffered trauma, is very high, and that some formerly common styles of parenting are not appropriate.
  4. The notes of the meeting referred to examples of Miss X’s loud and raised voice. It decided that, while the judge had stated this was not untypical of parents, it had been reported, including by children, as shouting. It felt that traumatised foster children would perceive Miss X as shouting and that this was undesirable.
  5. The second issue was physical chastisement. The meeting noted that Miss X accepted she had “tapped” a child on his hand at a party. It also noted that this was not the only reported incident. It felt that Miss X’s reported statement that the action at the party was instinctive meant that she had a propensity to react physically. It was also concerned that use of words like “tapped” and “caught” to describe physical contact were minimising. It stated it had a zero tolerance to physical chastisement of foster children.
  6. Finally, the meeting considered an incident in a public place when Miss X insisted that a foster child eat food she no longer wanted. The meeting notes stated that Miss X accepted this was not good practice. They also recorded that the child vomited and that a member of the public was sufficiently concerned to contact the police. Based on the three issue it considered, the Council decided its decision to remove Miss X from its fostering register was sound.
  7. The Council properly considered the evidence before it, as well as the possible implications of the court judgement regarding the child whom it ordered to be returned to Miss X’s care. Its decision to remove Miss X from its fostering register was therefore one it could make, and not a matter of procedural fault.

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Final decision

  1. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault to warrant this.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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