Summary: The Council was not at fault for much of how its children’s social work team handled her unborn baby’s case. However, there were some failures in risk management and, in particular, record-keeping. There was also a delay to the Council’s response to one of Mrs B’s complaints. The Council has agreed to apologise to Mrs B and take steps to improve its service.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I refer to as Mrs B, complains about the Council’s children’s social work team, and how it dealt with concerns about her unborn baby in 2022.
2. Mrs B says the Council:
• Conducted ‘intrusive’ visits which caused her anxiety.
• Made irrelevant enquiries.
• Reopened the case over minor issues.
• Placed unreasonable conditions on her following her discharge from hospital.
• Failed to deal with her complaints in a transparent manner.
3. Mrs B says these matters caused her distress. She says she wants procedural change at the Council.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. 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 significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
5. We consider whether there was fault in the way a council made its decision. If there was no fault in how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
6. If we are satisfied with a council’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)
7. Under our information sharing agreement, we will share this decision with the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted).

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How I considered this complaint

8. I considered information from Mrs 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

First and second referrals

9. In February 2022, the Council received a referral from another agency, which raised concerns about Mrs B (who was seven weeks pregnant). The referral said Mrs B had significant mental health difficulties, and there was domestic abuse within her relationship with her partner.
10. The Council decided to conduct a social work assessment, and it visited Mrs B and her partner shortly after. The social worker recorded, “I explained to parents that I was not there to penalise them for their mental health struggles … [I] was here to offer support”.
11. The Council did two more visits in March and April to gather information for its assessment. It recorded continued concerns about the mental health of Mrs B and her partner, although it noted that there had been no more incidents of domestic abuse.
12. The Council also received another referral from a different agency, which raised concerns about Mrs B’s alcohol use while pregnant.
13. Having made enquiries about Mrs B’s mental health with the relevant agency, the Council completed its assessment in early May. It decided Mrs B’s unborn baby needed support, and it proposed a support plan (as long as Mrs B consented).
14. Three weeks later, at a meeting to review the support plan, Mrs B withdrew her consent. She said she could access support services without the Council’s help.
15. The Council agreed and closed the case. It noted that Mrs B would continue to receive support under an ‘early help plan’ (which meant support would be coordinated by another professional without the need for a social worker).

Third referral

16. In August 2022, the Council received a further referral from another agency, which raised concerns about Mrs B’s partner’s mental health difficulties and substance misuse.
17. The Council decided there was no evidence of safeguarding concerns about
    Mrs B’s unborn baby, so further social work involvement was not justified. It noted that the family continued to receive support under the early help plan.

Fourth referral

18. A month later, the Council received another referral from a different agency involved with the family. This, again, raised concerns about Mrs B’s alcohol use while pregnant, as well as her significant history of mental health difficulties. The referrer said Mrs B had stopped engaging with the early help plan.
19. The Council decided to hold a strategy meeting with other agencies. This was to decide whether Mrs B’s unborn baby was at risk of significant harm.
20. The Council held its strategy meeting at the end of September (the day after
    Mrs B’s baby was born). There were mixed views among the professional attendees about whether the baby was at risk of significant harm.
21. The Council decided the ‘significant harm’ threshold had not been met at that point. But it also decided:
• Health services would visit Mrs B when she returned home.
• The baby’s social worker would conduct some more enquiries with other agencies.
• The Council would then hold a review strategy meeting.
22. There was no timescale for the review of the meeting, and, in any event, it appears the record of the meeting was not placed on Mrs B’s baby’s file for several months.
23. There then followed a period of a month in which – according to the Council’s records – nothing was done. There was no home visit, no enquiries with other agencies and no review strategy meeting.
24. The Council, in late October, recorded that it had not taken any further action on the case because Mrs B had not given consent. But I have seen no evidence that consent was discussed with Mrs B.
25. In January 2023 the Council uploaded the record of the strategy meeting and closed the case.

Mrs B’s complaint

26. Mrs B first complained to the Council about her health visitor in September 2022. Although she specified that this was a complaint, the Council dealt with it as a ‘concern’, and – having spoken to her on the telephone – did not provide a written response.
27. A week later, Mrs B made the same complaint to the NHS, which passed it back to the Council. The Council responded in early October, and Mrs B did not raise any more concerns.
28. Meanwhile, Mrs B made a second complaint about the Council’s children’s social work team. It responded in November, and, although Mrs B then made a stage 2 complaint about the same issue (as she remained dissatisfied), there is no evidence that the Council took any action to address her concerns.
29. In June 2023, Mrs B chased the Council for a response to her stage 2 complaint. The Council responded in early August, and, when Mrs B said she was still unhappy, referred her to the Ombudsman.

My findings

Visits

30. I have no reason to doubt that the Council’s home visits caused Mrs B anxiety (particularly in light of her existing mental health difficulties).
31. It is also unavoidable that social work visits are, by their very nature, ‘intrusive’ – they not only involve a local authority officer coming into a family’s home, but also generally involve personal and challenging questions.
32. However, I have seen no evidence that the Council’s visits to Mrs B were unnecessarily intrusive. In fact, after she withdrew her consent, the visits stopped.
33. This does not paint a picture of a council which was disrespecting Mrs B’s personal space or her private life. So I have found no fault with the Council on this point.

Enquiries

34. Although Mrs B may well have felt that enquiries the Council made were irrelevant, this was not for her to decide. It was for the Council, as the safeguarding authority, to decide what enquiries were needed in her case.
35. It is true, of course, that all enquiries made in the course of children’s safeguarding should be relevant and proportionate, in order to respect the child’s and parents’ rights to a private and family life as much as possible.
36. There is no evidence in Mrs B’s case that the Council obviously failed to have regard to this principle. In fact, when she withdrew her consent, the information-sharing between agencies stopped.
37. This suggests the Council recognised that the level of risk was not significant enough to proceed without Mrs B’s consent. This, in turn, suggests it had due regard to its responsibility to be proportionate.
38. However, the Council was at fault for either its inaction or its poor record-keeping in the immediate aftermath of the strategy meeting. The meeting record was not put on file for several months and it is not clear whether any of the actions from the meeting were ever completed. If they were, there is no record of them.
39. Although the Council says Mrs B refused consent for it to visit her or make enquiries with other agencies – and this is plausible, given Mrs B’s prior and subsequent objections to having social work involvement with her family – there is no record of this either.
40. This situation caused a lack of clarity within the Council about how it was managing the risk to Mrs B’s baby. And, given the absence of records, it is possible that this lack of clarity about the social work intervention in late 2022 may continue should the Council be involved with Mrs B’s family again.
41. This matter did not cause Mrs B a personal injustice, because she did not want the Council involved anyway.
42. However, similar problems in future could cause significant injustice to a child. The Council should take action to improve its service.

Reopened case

43. I acknowledge that Mrs B feels the reasons why the Council reopened her case were ‘minor’.
44. However, with the concerns raised in the referral in mind (mental health difficulties, alcohol use during pregnancy and a failure to engage with the early help plan), the Council’s decision to reopen the case does not appear to have been obviously unreasonable.
45. I would certainly not find fault with the Council for taking the view at the point of referral that these were, potentially, serious risks to Mrs B’s unborn baby (however the case eventually turned out).
46. Consequently, the Council was not at fault for deciding to reopen the case.

Conditions placed on Mrs B

47. It is unclear what Mrs B refers to when she says unreasonable conditions were placed on her when she returned home from hospital.
48. The Council’s strategy meeting was held the day after Mrs B’s baby was born – at which point, I believe, they were both was still in hospital – and it appears no further action was taken after this point.
49. With my above findings in mind, this may have been poor record-keeping by the Council, rather than inaction. And to that limited extent – that it is not clear exactly what happened, or when – I have found fault with the Council for this element of Mrs B’s complaint.
50. However, I cannot conclude that the Council placed unreasonable restrictions on Mrs B when she was discharged from hospital, as there is no evidence of any such restrictions.

Complaints

51. It could be said there was a lack of transparency in the Council’s initial handling of Mrs B’s health visitor complaint, because it did not provide a written response. If that had been the end of the complaint, it would not have been possible to establish the Council’s views on the issues Mrs B raised.
52. However, after Mrs B had resubmitted the complaint, the Council then responded to it. This meant, in all likelihood, a delay of around a fortnight.
53. This did not cause Mrs B a significant injustice, and therefore I will not comment on it further.
54. There are no inadequacies in the Council’s responses to Mrs B’s other complaint which would reach the threshold of maladministration – however unhappy Mrs B remained after receiving them.
55. However, there was a substantial delay to the Council’s response to her stage 2 complaint, which it has acknowledged in its correspondence with me. This likely caused Mrs B an injustice.

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Agreed actions

56. Within a month, the Council has agreed to apologise to Mrs B for a significant delay to its handling of her complaint.
57. Within two months, the Council has agreed to send us an action plan which sets out how, in future, it will avoid making similar mistakes in record-keeping, risk management and complaints-handling.
58. The Council will provide us with evidence it has done these things.

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Final decision

59. The Council was at fault for part of how it handled Mrs B’s case and her complaint.

Investigator’s final decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman