Summary: There was some fault in how the Council dealt with a Police referral about Miss B’s welfare. It failed to consider whether she had any care and support needs, and failed to seek her consent before talking to her employer about her fitness to work with children. It also took a role in the decision to refer her to the teaching regulator, which should have been her employer’s responsibility. However, there was no fault in its decision that the Police referral raised concerns about Miss B’s fitness to work with children. This was a matter of professional opinion which we cannot question. The Council has agreed to remedy Miss B’s injustice with an apology.

The complaint

1. In 2015 (when the events described in this complaint took place) the complainant – whom I refer to as Miss B – was a teacher. She was also a victim of domestic abuse. She reported this to the Police, who referred her to the Council.
2. Miss B complains about what the Council did next. It decided there were concerns about her fitness to work with children.
3. Miss B says:
1. The information provided by the Police did not meet the threshold for further investigation.
2. The Council acted like there was an allegation against her. In fact, she was a victim and had contacted the Police herself.
3. The Council failed to provide domestic abuse support, despite knowing she needed it.
4. The Council did nothing when her employer failed to follow correct procedures. It also provided inappropriate advice to her employer.
5. The Council judged her fitness to work with children without evidence. There was no evidence from relevant professionals to support the Council’s conclusions.
6. There was a significant delay to the Council’s handling of her complaint.
4. Miss B says the Council’s failings caused her significant distress, which made her ill. She says she also suffered financial loss after losing her job. She wants the Council to improve its service to prevent similar mistakes in future, and she wants individual officers held to account.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

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’. 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)
6. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word fault to refer to these. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in the decision making, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
7. 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)
8. 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.

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How I considered this complaint

9. I considered:

• information from Miss B and the Council.
• the 2015 children’s social care statutory guidance document, ‘Working together to safeguard children’, as well as other national guidance.
• relevant sections of the Care Act 2014, and accompanying Regulations and statutory guidance.
• procedural information the Council provided (including to one of the investigators originally looking into Miss B’s complaint in 2017).
• the Council’s corporate complaints procedure.

10. Miss B and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

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What I found

Procedural guidance

Safeguarding

11. All professionals who work with children have must help to keep them safe. However, councils have a lead role, and have specific duties to protect children suffering, or likely to suffer, significant harm. (Working together to safeguard children 2015)
12. When a council’s children’s social care team receives a referral, a social worker and their manager must decide on a course of action within one day. (Working together to safeguard children 2015)

Allegation management procedures

13. Every council should have officers to manage and oversee allegations against people who work with children. They routinely refer to these officers as local authority designated officers (LADOs). (Working together to safeguard children 2015)
14. Councils should ensure that they pass any allegations against people who work with children to LADOs without delay. (Working together to safeguard children 2015)
15. LADOs provide advice to employers on dealing with allegations against employees. They should make sure there is effective information-sharing between relevant agencies. They should also oversee the progress of cases and ensure employers deal with allegations consistently and without delay. (Working together to safeguard children 2015)
16. There are no longer any Council procedures available from 2015. But the Council says its LADOs:

• Decided if a child could be suffering ‘significant harm’. If the allegation met this threshold, they would send a referral to the relevant employer.
• Sent employers a generic risk assessment form. Each employer would complete and return this assessment.

17. The government issued guidance to schools and colleges (not councils) in 2015, which set out their ‘safer recruitment’ duties. This included:

• The duty to prevent people who posed a risk of harm from working with children.
• The duty to refer someone to the government’s disclosure and barring service (DBS) if they had lost their job because of safeguarding concerns.

(Keeping children safe in education 2015)

18. The Council says that, in 2015, its LADOs also took a role in ‘safer recruitment’. It referred to the educational guidance.

Domestic abuse procedures

19. There are specific conditions which someone’s needs must meet before they are eligible for care and support. Councils must decide eligibility. (Care and Support (Eligibility Criteria) Regulations 2015, Regulation 2)

The Council’s complaints procedure

20. The Council runs a two-stage complaints procedure. Stage 2 is for issues which are complex and need further investigation.
21. For complex complaints, the Council provides a full response to a stage 2 complaint within 20 working days of agreeing details of the complaint with the complainant.
22. When the Council cannot meet this deadline, it explains the delay and confirms a new deadline.

What happened

The referral

23. In October 2015 the Council received a referral from the Police which described a recent incident involving Miss B. She tried to confront an ex-partner, from whom she had suffered domestic abuse. She visited his house and, although he was not at home, had a discussion with his parents and sister which turned into an argument. She then went home and called the Police.
24. The Police completed an assessment of the domestic abuse risk to Miss B and decided there was a ‘medium risk’. They told the Council she had stopped her ex-partner finding her telephone number or her place of work. They also said she used a wide range of medication for her mental health and had lost two stone in weight.
25. The Council’s safeguarding hub decided there were significant enough concerns about Miss B’s mental health to justify a referral to the LADO, as she worked with children.
26. The Council says its safeguarding hub held no more records about its handling of the referral. And the hub no longer exists.

The LADO’s consideration

27. The Council’s LADO wrote to Miss B, asked to talk about the referral, and said the Council would be discussing its concerns with her employer.
28. The LADO spoke to Miss B on the telephone and said she “would be speaking to [Miss B’s] employer … [Miss B] said she would be fine with this”.
29. The LADO then spoke to Miss B’s employer and suggested it seek HR advice. The employer agreed to do a risk assessment and to offer Miss B support.
30. The LADO provided a risk assessment form and gave advice on its completion. The title of one section of the form was “INFORMATION RE ACCUSED ADULT”.
31. Miss B’s employer returned the risk assessment the same day. The employer raised no safeguarding concerns and decided it would not suspend Miss B.
32. Three days later, Miss B’s employer told the LADO that it had ended Miss B’s employment. The LADO said the employer needed to refer to the DBS if there were safeguarding concerns. The employer told the Council it had sacked Miss B for professional misconduct.
33. The LADO contacted Miss B’s employer again and asked for more information. The employer listed several concerns which, it said, had arisen since Miss B’s dismissal. After the call, the LADO emailed the employer and said:

I have passed the case to my manager … we have discussed the case and feel that you should refer the case to the [teaching regulator]. You will also need to consider what you put in a reference … As you will need to state that you dismissed her.

34. The employer referred Miss B to the teaching regulator, and asked the LADO whether it should contact the DBS. The LADO said that, if the concerns which arose after Miss B’s dismissal “would have [met] the threshold for gross misconduct … a referral to the DBS will be needed”.
35. The LADO then closed Miss B’s case.

Miss B’s complaints

36. Miss B complained about how the Council had handled her case. The Council arranged an independent investigation, and completed it in 2017.
37. The LADO’s manager accepted that, in the LADO’s email, she had seemingly told Miss B’s employer to refer Miss B to the teaching regulator. Instead, the manager said the LADO should have suggested the employer consider a referral.
38. The Council did not issue its findings from the investigation to Miss B until 2020. These were subject to a previous Ombudsman investigation, so I will not comment further. However, we did ask the Council to reinvestigate the complaint.
39. The Council agreed a new statement of complaint with Miss B in August 2021. The investigator then had a medical procedure, with a three-month recovery period. Miss B received the draft report in February 2022 and, having made comments, received the Council’s final response in April 2022.
40. The Council accepted that it was wrong in the way it sought consent from Miss B to contact her employer after receiving the referral. It apologised.

My findings

Complaint A: Did Miss B’s case meet the LADO’s threshold for further investigation?

41. Councils must pass allegations against people who work with children to LADOs without delay.
42. Miss B says there was no allegation against her. And it appears the Police did not intend to raise concerns about her fitness to work with children.
43. However, social workers are responsible for deciding what action to take in response to a referral. Their professional qualifications and experience inform their decision-making. And I cannot usually question professional opinion. Only in exceptional circumstances – when a council’s decision is so obviously unreasonable that it defies logic – can I do so.
44. The social worker who dealt with Miss B’s Police referral noted that she worked with children. I know there was no ‘allegation’. But the social worker still had to identify potential risks and decide how to react to them. In their professional opinion, the information from the Police justified a LADO referral. I have no grounds to question that decision.
45. According to the Council, it did not have concerns that a child may be suffering significant harm, so it could not contact Miss B’s employer without her consent. This did not prevent the LADO from making further enquiries or discussing concerns with Miss B’s employer; however, this could only happen with Miss B’s agreement.
46. Miss B did say the Council could contact her employer. But the Council did not give her a choice. It said it would contact the employer, and she simply accepted that. There was no suggestion that she could say no.
47. I have found fault with this approach to seeking consent from Miss B. I note, however, that Miss B has already received an apology from the Council.
48. This apology is a satisfactory result. I am aware that Miss B feels the Council’s mistakes early on in the process meant the rest of the LADO’s actions were illegitimate. But I have not seen evidence to support that view. And I cannot speculate about what would have happened had Miss B refused consent. So I do not consider further action necessary.

Complaint B: Did the Council properly consider Miss B’s status as a domestic abuse victim when conducting enquiries?

49. Miss B believes the Council treated her as though she was a perpetrator – a danger to children – rather than a victim of domestic abuse.
50. One way in which Miss B thinks the Council did this was by providing a risk assessment form to her employer. She says the form was for people subject to allegations.
51. The risk assessment form does refer to the ‘accused adult’. But this was a template form – the Council did not design it specifically for Miss B.
52. Councils can use template forms if they are suitable. And I would not expect a council to have different versions with different wording for every possible scenario. The question I must consider is whether the Council’s use of a generic form in Miss B’s case misled her employer by suggesting there was an allegation against her.
53. Having reviewed the Council’s records, I am satisfied that – whatever the wording used on the template risk assessment – the Council made the circumstances of the referral clear to Miss B’s employer. I have seen nothing which would suggest the Council led the employer to believe there was an allegation against Miss B. So I have found no fault in the Council’s provision of the risk assessment form.
54. Miss B also raises a broader point, which concerns the Council’s overall approach. She feels the LADO treated her like she was a danger to children and ignored the domestic abuse she had suffered.
55. I appreciate that, when Miss B called the Police for support, the LADO’s involvement would not have been what she wanted or expected. I also imagine that Miss B’s circumstances, while far from unique, may not have been typical of those to which LADOs usually respond.
56. However, a LADO’s duty is to ensure the safety of children. I will not criticise a LADO for focusing on a possible risk to children over Miss B’s own needs.
57. I do not doubt that this sequence of events was upsetting and stressful for Miss B; however, I imagine this is would usually be the case for people subject to allegations. Even had the LADO used different language, and used a different risk assessment template, this would have been unlikely to change the significant events.
58. As a result, I have found no fault with the Council’s general approach to the Police referral.

Complaint C: Did the Council deny Miss B domestic abuse support?

59. The Police referral put Miss B at ‘medium’ risk (meaning ‘there are identifiable indicators of risk of serious harm’). The referral suggested she may need care or support as a result.
60. I cannot decide whether Miss B should have been eligible for care or support under the Care Act. But I expect those who are responsible for such decisions to consider referrals about adults at risk properly.
61. The Council did not do so. It just passed the referral to the LADO. It did not consider telling adult social care. It was at fault for this oversight, and should apologise to Miss B for failing to consider her needs properly.
62. However, I do not consider any other recommendations necessary. This is because Miss B later sought domestic abuse support from the relevant charity directly, rather than through the Council. This means inconvenience was her only injustice.
63. Given the time that has passed, I do not consider it reasonable to recommend any service improvements either. The unit which dealt with the referral no longer exists.

Complaint D: Was the Council’s advice to Miss B’s employer appropriate?

64. The Council acted in line with its responsibilities by discussing the referral with Miss B’s employer. And it had no role in the decision to dismiss Miss B. It gave no HR advice before her sacking and, if there were any procedural errors by Miss B’s employer, these were nothing to do with the Council.
65. The Council says it had ‘safer recruitment’ responsibilities under the relevant statutory guidance. The duties under that guidance actually applied to schools and colleges, not the Council. But LADOs provide advice and guidance to employers. There is nothing preventing a council reminding an educational employer of its statutory safeguarding responsibilities.
66. This, in my view, applied to the Council’s advice to Miss B’s employer about referring her to the DBS. It made clear the employer was responsible for the decision. There was nothing wrong with the Council taking this approach.
67. Its approach when advising Miss B’s employer whether to refer to the teaching regulator was slightly more heavy-handed. Rather than advising the employer of its responsibilities and referring to the guidance, it said the employer ‘should’ refer her. This suggested the Council had already made the decision, when in fact the decision was for Miss B’s employer, not the Council. The LADO’s manager recognised this during the Council’s first complaint investigation.
68. The Council was at fault for how it advised Miss B’s employer on this issue. However, I do not consider it likely that Miss B suffered any injustice. There is a reasonable chance her employer would have referred her to the teaching regulator anyway. And, irrespective of who decided to make the referral, the regulator decided not to take action.
69. For these reasons, no further action is necessary.

Complaint E: Did the Council judge Miss B’s fitness to work with children without evidence?

70. I have seen no evidence in the Council’s records that it judged Miss B’s fitness to work with children. Her employer decided to sack her, and – although the Council was at fault for its role in her referral to the teaching regulator – even this placed the decision-making responsibility onto the regulator.
71. As a result, I have seen no evidence of fault in this part of Miss B’s complaint.

Complaint F: Did the Council cause delays when handling Miss B’s complaint?

72. The Council aims to respond to ‘complex’ stage 2 complaints within 20 working days of agreeing a statement of complaint with the complainant.
73. There were 125 working days between the Council agreeing Miss B’s statement of complaint and sending her a draft report. There were then a further 25 working days until the Council issued its final response.
74. I have not found that Miss B experienced any injustice from the period between receiving the draft and final responses. This gave her an opportunity to comment – and this is not an opportunity usually given to people under the Council’s procedure.
75. I will also not comment on any potential delays before Miss B signed the statement of complaint. This was a collaborative procedure involving Miss B, and the Council’s timescale only started from the date of the statement.
76. However, the period of 125 days to complete the draft report represented a delay, for which I have found the Council at fault.
77. Part of this delay was unavoidable, as the investigator needed surgery. And I cannot say if a reassigned investigator would have completed the investigation sooner.
78. With this in mind – and given that the investigation took place five years after the events Miss B was complaining about – I consider an apology a satisfactory recommendation.

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Agreed action

79. Within four weeks, the Council has agreed to apologise to Miss B for the inconvenience and frustration she suffered because of its failure to refer her for adult social care support, and for the delays to its complaint investigation.
80. The Council has agreed to provide us with evidence it has sent this apology.

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Final decision

81. There was some fault in how the Council dealt with a Police referral about
    Miss B’s welfare. The agreed action remedies her injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman