Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about child protection action relating to the complainant’s children. Investigation would not lead to a different outcome and is not therefore warranted.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Miss X, complains that the Council was at fault in its actions relating to the safety of her children, as a result of which they were unnecessarily made subject to child protection plans.

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

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My assessment

5. Miss X’s complaint relates to the actions of a social worker in the course of child protection action relating to her children. The action was prompted by Miss X’s relationship with a third party, and the complaint concerns the Council’s approach to identifying and managing what it saw as the risk the third party posed to her children. It is not for the Ombudsman to consider whether the third party posed a risk, and we will express no view on this.
6. Miss X says the decision to convene a Child Protection Conference (CPC) was the result of procedural fault on the Council’s part. She says she was not given a written safety plan but agreed verbally with the social worker not to allow the third party unsupervised access to her children.
7. The matter was subsequently referred to the CPC. Miss X says this was on the false premise that she had breached the safety plan by allowing supervised access. Miss X says she had not acted outside the agreement she had made with the social worker and, as she did not have a safety plan, she could not have been in breach of it. She believes the CPC should not have been convened, and she contends that the report presented by the social worker was inaccurate.
8. Miss X’s view is that the CPC’s decision to make her children subject to a child protection plan was unfair and unnecessary. She says that it caused distress, reputational damage and financial loss.
9. The Ombudsman will not investigate Miss X’s complaint. This is because investigating would not add anything significant to the response the Council has already made, or lead to a different outcome. The Council has accepted that no written safety plan had been agreed and shared at the point at which the referral to the CPC was made and has apologised. It does not however follow that referral was inappropriate or unjustified.
10. The CPC was the forum in which Miss X would have been able to make her case against making her children subject to child protection plans, and to correct any inaccuracies presented by the social worker. It was for the CPC to decide whether formal action was warranted, and there are no grounds for us to criticise the decision or intervene to substitute an alternative view.
11. The evidence shows that the Court subsequently made a Prohibited Steps Order in respect of the third party’s contact with the children, and the child protection plans have ceased. Our intervention would not lead to a different outcome and is not therefore warranted.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman