Summary: Ms X complained about how the Council responded to her report of concerns about a local child. The Council was at fault for failing to take appropriate action in response to Ms X’s information. This caused Ms X avoidable distress. It has apologised to Ms X which is appropriate to remedy the injustice caused to her. It has taken some action to improve its service following Ms X’s complaint but in order to prevent a recurrence of the fault or injustice being caused to others, it will now make further service improvements.

The complaint

1. Ms X complained about how the Council responded to her report of concerns about a local child. She said the Council's poor response has led her to question the quality of the Council's children’s service and caused her distress. She wants a full review of the service and significant widespread improvements.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
3. We may investigate matters coming to our attention during an investigation, if we consider that a member of the public who has not complained may have suffered an injustice as a result. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26D and 34E, as amended)
4. If we are satisfied with an organisation’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)
5. 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.

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

6. I have considered:
• all the information Ms X provided and discussed the complaint with her;
• the Council’s comments about the complaint and the supporting documents it provided; and
• the relevant law and guidance.
7. Ms X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered comments received before making a final decision

Back to top

What I found

Relevant law and guidance

Child protection

8. Under section 47 of the Children Act 1989, where a council has reasonable cause to suspect that a child in their area is suffering or is likely to suffer significant harm, it has a duty to make such enquiries as it considers necessary to decide whether to take any action to safeguard or promote the child’s welfare. Such enquiries should be initiated where there are concerns about abuse or neglect.

The Council’s call handling procedures

9. The Council’s children’s services has a telephone service which members of the public can ring to report concerns about a child’s welfare.
10. Each call into the service is received by an initial call handler. Dependent on the nature of the enquiry and information received, the call handler will decide what to do next. This may include passing the call through to a social worker, convening a strategy discussion or signposting to another agency or Council service.
11. Where the service receives a call from an anonymous caller, the procedure is for these calls to be passed through to a social worker, who will then gather more information.

What happened

12. Ms X contacted the Council with concerns about a child living in her local area. She asked to remain anonymous. The call handler discussed Ms X’s concerns with her and, as Ms X wanted to remain anonymous, asked a social worker to take the call to gather more information. The social worker declined to take the call. They told the call handler to advise Ms X to call the Police instead, who could carry out a welfare check. Ms X called the Police, who visited the property and took immediate action to protect the child. Ms X has since become aware the child was living in poor conditions and suffering harm.
13. Ms X complained to the Council. She said the Council should have done more in response to her call to act to protect the child. She said the Council’s poor response had caused her distress and led her to lose faith in the Council’s ability to protect local children from harm.
14. The Council responded to say:
• it accepted the social worker should have spoken to Ms X directly to explore her concerns more fully;
• it should have investigated Ms X’s worries and explained to her what it would do;
• it had reviewed the call and based on the information Ms X gave, if it had acted properly, it would likely have carried out an assessment with the family. The information did not justify it taking emergency action that night; and
• it was sorry it had not acted correctly and acknowledged that Ms X’s actions had ultimately allowed it and the Police to safeguard the child.
15. The Council said it would take the following learning from the complaint.
• It would consider in what circumstances it was appropriate to advise callers to contact the Police.
• It would carry out random calls to the children’s service to ensure anonymous callers were being put through to a social worker.
• It would carry out a review of the case to identify learning and development for staff.
16. Ms X remained unhappy and brought the complaint to us.
17. I asked the Council to provide us with evidence that it had learnt from the complaint and acted to improve its services and prevent a recurrence of the fault.
18. The Council provided evidence that following Ms X’s complaint it had:
• Held a multi-agency meeting to consider what it could learn and actions it needed to take to improve the service.
• Held a learning review with the officers involved in this case to ensure improved practice going forward.
• Discussed the case with relevant social workers to share the learning from the case more widely.
• Considered in what circumstances it was appropriate to advise callers to contact the Police and shared this learning with appropriate officers.
• Started monthly call audits to monitor the quality of call handling by officers. However, it said these were currently paused since early 2022 due to a significant increase in the number of calls coming into the service. It planned to resume these in Autumn 2022.
• Directed its call handlers to report any refusal by a social worker to take an anonymous call directly to their team leader. It said discussion and recording of this issue would also be a standing item on the team meeting monthly agenda going forward. It would also include questions about anonymous calls in its call quality monitoring.
19. It said it had explored whether it could make anonymous calls into the service for call monitoring purposes, but due to the logistics of its case recording system, it was not appropriate to do this.

Findings

20. The Council failed to respond appropriately to Ms X’s call. Ms X was an anonymous caller and the call should have been passed to a social worker to gather further information and determine what action was necessary. The Council did not do this and this was fault. This poor service caused Ms X avoidable distress as she felt the Council was not taking her concerns seriously and was going to allow the child to come to harm. The Council has accepted it was at fault in how it responded to Ms X’s concerns. It has remedied that injustice by apologising to Ms X.
21. Ms X wants a widespread review of the Council's children’s services. That is not within the Ombudsman's powers. It is open to Ms X to complain to Ofsted, who inspect council children’s services and can identify if overarching change is needed.
22. The Council provided evidence to us that it has learnt from this complaint and taken actions to improve its service. However, it has paused call handling quality monitoring since January 2022 and not yet implemented some actions. I am concerned this may lead to a recurrence of the fault or be causing an injustice to others. An increase in call volume is not good reason for pausing the quality monitoring. In fact, where there is increased pressure on a service, it is even more important to maintain quality monitoring to ensure the service quality is maintained. I welcome the Council’s response that it has agreed funding to recruit more officers to the service to help address the issue, but in order to maintain a high quality service and prevent recurrence of the fault, the call quality monitoring should resume as soon as possible.
23. The Council also said it will amend its call quality monitoring framework to include questions about anonymous calls and add discussions about social workers refusing to take calls as a standing item on its monthly meeting agenda. The Council should now complete these actions and provide evidence to the Ombudsman that it has done so.

Back to top

Agreed action

24. Within two months of the final decision the Council will:
• Restart the monthly quality monitoring of its call handling.
• Amend the call handling quality monitoring framework, to include the additional questions about anonymous calls.
• Amend the team meeting agenda framework, to add discussion of instances where social workers have refused to take calls as a standing item.

It should provide us with evidence it has completed these actions.

Back to top

Final decision

25. I have completed my investigation. I have found fault leading to injustice. The Council has already remedied Ms X’s injustice and will now complete service improvements to prevent recurrence of the fault or injustice being caused to others.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman