Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s decision that Miss X’s children needed to be subject to child protection plans. There is not enough evidence of fault by the Council to warrant our further involvement.

The complaint

1. Miss X said the Council conducted a flawed child protection process and that the decision to make her children subject to child protection plans was reached despite allegations not being upheld.

Back to top

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 there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating.(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
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 how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

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

Back to top

My assessment

6. Miss X provided copies of her complaint correspondence with the Council, including its final response, which ran to 15 pages and gave detailed reasons for its position.
7. Child protection duties are not based on notions of the innocence or guilt of adults. Instead, they centre on reducing risk of harm to children. When a child alleges they have been harmed by an adult, the Council does not have to satisfy itself that the adult caused the harm, but instead must protect the child until such time when it can safely decide the risk has been mitigated. Where another adult declines to accept that an adult alleged by the child to have harmed them may have done so, that is deemed an additional risk.
8. The Council received a contact from Miss X’s child’s school, concerned about the child, who had an injury. A social worker was entitled to interview the child at school because she had a duty to do so. The child said the injury had been caused by Miss X’s partner. Miss X did not accept the partner had caused the injury.
9. The Council had several concerns. They included what the child said about Miss X and her partner, and the responses of Miss X and her partner to the social worker. They also included Miss X’s unwillingness to accept that her partner might have caused the harm, as claimed by her child. There were also other matters relating to the child’s school attendance and what was happening during the school day. Given those concerns, particularly Miss X’s unwillingness to accept her partner might have harmed her child, the decision that the child and a sibling should be subject to child protection plans is one the Council was entitled to take. Although Miss X did not share the Council’s concerns, this is not evidence of fault by the Council. Other issues raised by Miss X in her complaint are peripheral and do not affect that.

Back to top

Final decision

10. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council to warrant our further involvement.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman