Summary: The Council was not at fault for how it responded to
Miss B’s historic rape disclosure in 2016 when she was in care. It discussed this disclosure with her and offered support, but she did not want to report it to the Police. The Council’s handling of this disclosure was a matter of professional judgement which we cannot question.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I refer to as Miss B, is a care leaver. She says that, in 2016 (when she was still in care) she told a social worker that she had been the victim of a rape. She complains that the social worker failed to deal with this disclosure properly and she was offered no support.
2. Miss B says the Council’s failure to act caused her distress. She wants an apology. She also wants the Council to discipline the social worker and train its staff properly.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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)
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)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information from Miss B and the Council. Both 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

What happened

6. In November 2016 Miss B was in local authority care. She lived in supported accommodation with her one-year-old child, whom I refer to as C. Separate social workers from the Council managed her and C’s respective cases.
7. Miss B says that, in November, she told C’s social worker that she had been raped over a year previously. She had not been in care at the time. The Council’s records show that the social worker passed this information to Miss B’s own social worker.
8. In late November Miss B’s social worker visited Miss B. She discussed the merits of reporting the rape with Miss B (such as “being safer in the future”). But:

[Miss B] says she does not want to report this – says she initially told police but when told a prosecution was unlikely she did not want to proceed. [Miss B] feels she would be at bigger risk if she reported it. She says she does not see the perpetrator and is in no contact with him. He lives in [a local town] and she would not go to the area in which he lives but does not otherwise feel at threat in [the town].

9. Miss B’s social worker told Miss B that “she could speak to me at any point if this changes”.
10. In 2023, Miss B complained about the Council’s response to her rape disclosure. But the Council said there was no evidence that she had made the disclosure.

My findings

11. A social worker’s decision-making is informed by their qualifications and experience. 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.
12. Although Miss B’s complaint is primarily about C’s social worker – who, she felt, failed to deal with her rape disclosure properly – the Council’s records make clear that he reported the disclosure to Miss B’s own social worker.
13. As it was Miss B’s social worker who was responsible for coordinating support for Miss B, this does not appear to have been an unreasonable course of action, and I have no reason to criticise how C’s social worker responded to Miss B’s disclosure.
14. I have, however, considered a broader point: did the Council (rather than C’s social worker as an individual) do enough?
15. There is no defined procedure which would have been specific to Miss B’s circumstances. Clearly, as a young person in care, the Council had a duty to meet her needs. But she was not at risk at the time she made the disclosure. So I do not have reason to criticise the Council for not conducting a safeguarding investigation to ascertain whether she was suffering significant harm. And she herself did not want the Council to involve the Police.
16. This, then, was a matter of judgement for Miss B’s social worker, who encouraged Miss B to report the rape, and offered support should she decide to do so in future. This was not an obviously unreasonable approach, so I cannot question it.
17. The Council’s view is that, even though Miss B did not want to pursue her disclosure, there was a lot of emotional support in place for her more generally, and that, if she had wanted to use that support in relation to the disclosure, it would have been available to her. There is certainly evidence of emotional support in place for Miss B and therefore the Council’s view is not unreasonable.
18. It is regrettable that Miss B felt unsupported, and this, in itself, must have been distressing for her. But there is no evidence that the Council was at fault for its approach.

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Final decision

19. The Council was not at fault for how it responded to Miss B’s rape disclosure in 2016 when she was in care.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman