Summary: We have discontinued our investigation into Mr B’s complaint about the Council’s social work involvement with his family. It is unlikely we could add to the Council’s own complaint investigation, or the remedial action it proposes.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I refer to as Mr B, describes various ways in which he is dissatisfied with the Council’s social work team. He says the Council’s failings caused him distress. He wants compensation, and significant changes within the Council.

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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 council, or further investigation would not lead to a different outcome. (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 from Mr 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

The Ombudsman’s guidance on remedies

4. We do not punish councils in the way a court might. This means we do not award ‘damages’ or ‘compensation’.
5. Instead, we can ask a council to make a payment to ‘symbolise and acknowledge’ the distress someone suffered because of what it did wrong.   
6. If we decide it is appropriate, we normally recommend a remedy payment for distress of up to £500. But we can recommend higher payments if we decide the distress was especially severe or prolonged.

What happened

The Council’s investigation into Mr B’s complaint

7. Mr B first complained to the Council in late 2022. The Council responded under the three-stage Children Act complaints procedure. This involved an independent investigation (stage 2) and a review by an independent panel (stage 3).
8. The Council upheld some of Mr B’s complaints following all three stages of the complaint procedure. It accepted that it had:
• been partly responsible for delays to a domestic abuse perpetrator programme;
• unreasonably suggested that he was obstructive to social workers in relation to access to his family and his home;
• made errors in record-keeping;
• failed to keep him informed about proper hospital discharge procedure after the birth of one of his children;
• failed to provide child protection conference reports to him;
• failed to provide information to him which he had requested by email;
• failed to demonstrate that it had worked in accordance with its own anti-racist practice standards; and
• failed to focus on his family’s strengths in its decision-making.
9. The Council did not uphold all of Mr B’s complaints. When deciding not to uphold a complaint the stage 2 investigator, in particular, referred extensively to case records and – if relevant – guidance.

The Council’s offers to Mr B

10. To recognise Mr B’s injustice, the Council offered:
• an apology;
• advice on how to submit a subject access request, if he wishes;
• to place the complaint investigation reports on his children’s files, so anyone reviewing the files would be aware of the outcomes of the complaint;
• to make social work managers aware of the complaint outcomes so they can consider service improvements;
• to pass the complaint investigation reports onto its race, equality and inclusion team so they can consider the complaint outcomes when making decisions on policy and staff training;
• an outline of its ongoing audit procedure;
• an outline of the procedure in place for identifying a family’s strengths as well as areas of concern;
• a £650 payment to recognise his distress from the areas for which it was fault; and
• a further £100 payment to recognise his distress from a two-month delay to its stage 2 investigation.

My findings

11. If a complaint has already been through the three-stage Children Act complaints procedure, this means the complainant has already had access to an independent investigation.
12. Consequently, we will not normally re-investigate such a complaint unless we have reason to believe the previous investigation was flawed.
13. I have considered the documents from Mr B’s complaint, and I note that:
• each part of the complaint was considered and addressed by the Council;
• the investigator, at stage 2, made extensive references to case records and relevant guidance;
• parts of the complaint were upheld, and therefore require no additional scrutiny;
• on the points of the complaint which were not upheld, the findings of the stage 2 investigator are not obviously unreasonable, given the evidence summarised in the report;
• any disagreements between the Council and the investigator are very minor and are adequately explained;
• the panel report reinforces that the quality of the stage 2 report was satisfactory; and
• Mr B is not dissatisfied with the quality of the stage 2 investigation. His dissatisfaction was with things said in the investigator’s interviews by members of the Council’s staff. He had the opportunity to explain his unhappiness to the stage 3 panel but none of the stage 2 findings were overturned.
14. Because of this, it is unlikely I would be able to add anything significant to what the Council has already said. If I were to reinvestigate the complaint, it is also unlikely that this would lead to a substantially different outcome for Mr B.
15. I have, however, considered whether the Council’s proposed remedies properly recognise the avoidable distress Mr B may have experienced.
16. Mr B wants the Council to increase the payment it has offered, in recognition of – as he sees it – his significant distress. But the Council has already offered Mr B £750.
17. I know Mr B is unhappy with this. But the offer is in line with the Ombudsman’s guidance and recognises not only that he suffered distress, but that this distress was severe or prolonged.
18. The Council has also taken steps to outline how its service will operate better in future. Any efforts to improve its service are a matter for the Council to decide, not the Ombudsman. Time will tell whether they are effective.
19. For these reasons, I am satisfied that the Council has already adequately investigated Mr B’s complaint and remedied any injustice arising from it. No further input from the Ombudsman is needed.

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Final decision

20. I have discontinued my investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman