Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the actions of the Council’s children’s services officers in their engagement with the complainant’s family because investigation would not achieve anything significant.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I will refer to as Mr X, complains that the Council’s children’s services officers have been at fault in the course of their engagement with his family.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide:

• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Mr X’s complaint concerns the actions of children’s services officers following his request for support for his daughter, who I will refer to as Y. He believes the Council’s actions have been unreasonable and procedurally flawed and that, in addition to the uncertainty and distress this has caused, it has led to a flawed decision to make his other daughter, who I will refer to as Z, subject to a Child in Need Plan.
6. Mr X complains that, after making an offer of support for Y, the Council’s social worker unreasonably made a safeguarding referral. He says relevant information he provided was not uploaded to the Council’s file. In his view, the decision to make the referral was flawed.
7. Following the referral, the Council carried out a Child and Family Assessment (CAFA). Mr X says he did not consent to Z being included in the CAFA. The result of the CAFA was that the Council decided to make both children subject to Child in Need Plans. Mr X says there is no basis for Z to be subject to a Plan. He complains that the CAFA was not shared with him before the decision was made and that the Council has failed to correct factual errors within it.
8. In settlement of his complaint, Mr X wants the file relating to Z closed, and for disciplinary action to be taken against the officer responsible for making her subject to a Child in Need Plan. He wants amendments made to the CAFA and financial compensation for the stress his family has endured. Looking forward, he wants an assurance that the current social worker will work from Y’s agreed Plan.
9. The Ombudsman will not investigate Mr X’s complaint. This is because we could not add anything significant to the responses the Council has made to his two formal complaints about the process, and cannot achieve the outcomes he is seeking.
10. The Council’s responses have identified some procedural errors and apologised for them. So, there is no need for the Ombudsman to revisit these aspects of the complaint. The key decisions however are matters for the professional judgement of the officers concerned. The evidence does not suggest that the decisions to make the safeguarding referral or to make the children subject to Child in Need Plans would have been different in the absence of the identified procedural fault.
11. Mr X disagrees with those decisions, but that does not mean they are wrong. In the absence of evidence of significant fault in the way the decisions were made, the Ombudsman cannot criticise them, or intervene to substitute an alternative view.
12. Turning to the outcomes Mr X is seeking, the Ombudsman cannot take a view on whether Z should remain subject to a Child in Need Plan. Neither do we have the power to recommend disciplinary action against individuals.
13. We will not ask a council to make retrospective changes to documents or files. The most we will seek in these circumstances is that a record of a complainant’s dissenting views is added. If Mr X believes the files contain false information, his recourse is to pursue his legal right to rectification. There is no role for us. If, in future, Mr X identifies that the social worker is not working to the agreed Child in Need Plan, he should bring this to the Council’s attention in the first instance.

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Final decision

14. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because we cannot achieve anything significant by doing so.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman