Bracknell Forest Council (22 015 802)
Category : Children's care services > Child protection
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 09 Mar 2023
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s view that the complainant’s contact with his partner’s children should be supervised. This is because there is no evidence of fault on the Council’s part.
The complaint
- The complainant, who I will refer to as Mr X, complains that the Council is at fault in misrepresenting him as a risk to his partner’s children.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse effect on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start an investigation if the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by the complainant.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- Mr X says the Council has pressurised his partner into signing an agreement that he must not have unsupervised contact with her children. He says this action is based on a malicious allegation made against him which was not pursued and that it is preventing him from continuing with his relationship.
- Mr X wants the Council to consider his claim that he is innocent of the allegation against him, and to stop treating him as a risk to children.
- In response, the Council has set out several factors which led it to conclude that unsupervised access as inappropriate, demonstrating that it is not basing its view solely on the allegation. It has also explained that any agreement signed by the children’s mother must be voluntary.
- The Ombudsman will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is no evidence of fault on the Council’s part. It is not for us to take a view on whether Mr X poses a risk to children. The Council is entitled to take account of the matters it has set out in its complaint response, and it is for its officers to use their professional judgement to decide what view to take. There is no evidence of fault in the way it has done so. That being the case, we cannot criticise the Council’s position or intervene to substitute an alternative view.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is no evidence of fault on the Council’s part.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman