Summary: The Council was at fault when it unnecessarily delayed and poorly handled its investigation into an allegation that Mr X had abused his foster child. The investigation found the allegation to be unsubstantiated. Mr X said the Council’s actions caused him and his family avoidable distress. We have found fault leading to injustice and recommended a financial remedy and service improvements.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council:
• unnecessarily delayed and poorly handled its investigation into an allegation that he had abused his foster child;
• made unfair comments about Mr X and his partner as foster carers in a report; and
• failed to properly support Mr X and his family with respect to the foster placement.
2. Mr X says the Council’s actions caused him and his family prolonged distress and he and his partner are concerned they may no longer feel comfortable being Council foster carers.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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 an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
4. The Ombudsman cannot investigate whether social workers are meeting their professional standards of conduct. Complaints of this nature should be referred to the social workers’ professional body, Social Work England.
5. Under our information sharing agreement, we will share this decision with the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted).
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)

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How I considered this complaint

7. I considered the evidence provided by Mr X and the Council.
8. I considered the relevant law and guidance as set out below.
9. I considered our Guidance on Remedies.
10. I considered comments made by Mr X and the Council on my draft decision before making a final decision.

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Law and guidance

Preparing foster carers for a new placement

11. Fostering Services National Minimum Standards (2011) say foster carers have a right to full information about a child they foster. Information provided should be up to date and include any recent significant events, to help carers understand and predict the child’s needs and behaviours.

Allegations of abuse against children by foster carers

12. Councils have a duty to investigate if there is reasonable cause to suspect that a child in their area is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm. These are often called s47 enquiries (Children Act 1989, section 47).
13. The Children Act 1989 Guidance and Regulations Volume 4: Fostering Services says that in all but ‘truly exceptional cases…80 per cent of cases should be resolved within one month, 90 per cent within three months, and all but the most exceptional cases should be completed within 12 months’.
14. In cases involving allegations against people who work with children, (e.g. foster carers) the statutory guidance says councils should designate an officer or team of officers to be involved in managing and overseeing these types of allegations. The officer in the council is the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) (‘Working Together to safeguard children’ (March 2015, updated in 2018).
15. The LADO arranges a meeting to discuss the allegations. The meeting should discuss the next steps in investigating the allegation and decide whether there should be a child protection (s47) enquiry.
16. Following the investigation, the council records one of five possible outcomes. It decides whether the allegation is:
• Substantiated – “there is sufficient evidence to prove the allegation that a child has been harmed or there is a risk of harm”.
• Unsubstantiated – “there is insufficient evidence to either prove or disprove the allegation. The term, therefore, does not imply guilt or innocence.”
• Unfounded - where there is no evidence or proper basis which supports the allegation being made.
• False - there is sufficient evidence to disprove the allegation.
• Malicious - there is sufficient evidence to disprove the allegation and there has been a deliberate act to deceive.

Rights of foster carers during the investigation

17. The National Fostering Minimum Standards say investigations into allegations against carers should be carried out fairly, quickly and consistently in a way that provides protection to the child but also support to the person subject to the investigation.
18. The National Fostering Minimum Standards also says the investigation has a designated person, who is a senior manager, responsible for managing allegations. The designated person has responsibility for liaising with the LADO and for keeping the subject of the allegation informed of progress during and after the investigation.
19. The Council’s own ‘Allegations Against Foster Carers’ policy says the Council must:
• provide to the foster carers a copy of this procedure and the relevant part of the Hull Safeguarding Children's Partnership Guidelines and Procedures;
• discuss with the foster carers the role of an independent support worker and if requested provide the address and contact telephone number of the Foster Talk FIS Service and Fostering Network Advice line. A referral for support will then be made by the Team Manager or Group Manager;
• give the foster carers a copy of 'Protecting Children - Supporting Foster Carers, Dealing with an Allegation’. 
• provide advice about insurance arrangements for any legal expenses; and
• provide information about the complaints procedure.

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What I found

What happened

20. Mr X and his partner fostered two children in July 2020 and the placement broke down a month later as their foster child made an allegation of abuse against Mr X.
21. Mr X says that prior to accepting the placement, they were not made aware of important information regarding the foster children’s recent behaviour, including a recent history of mental health needs, self-harm and physical fighting between the two siblings. Mr X said their own children were affected by this behaviour during the placement.
22. Mr X and his partner said they told the Council they did not want children with a history of violence until they were better settled as foster carers and because of their own young children in the home.
23. During the placement, Mr X and his partner were also upset by comments made about them in a social worker’s report and complained about this to the Council. Mr X and his partner felt that the social worker did not spend sufficient time with them to have formed the opinion that they did.
24. On 18 August 2020, Mr X’s foster child alleged Mr X had hit them. A decision was taken later that day by Children’s Services to remove the children from the foster parents while the allegation was investigated.
25. On the same day, the family’s Fostering Social Worker contacted Mr X to inform him that an allegation had been made. The social worker explained they could not disclose any further information about the nature of the allegation to Mr X at this stage.
26. Shortly after, the Council made a referral for independent fostering support for Mr X. This type of support must be put in place for the foster carer so they are informed of their rights during the allegation process.
27. Councils must also provide copies of the Council’s policies on managing allegations and their safeguarding policy. The Council initially told us that it had sent Mr X these documents. However, the Council later informed us this was not correct and could not find evidence that Mr X was provided with any of these documents.
28. A meeting took place the day after the allegation was made with professionals from the Police and Children’s Services in attendance. No one from the Council’s Fostering Service was present. The Fostering Service has since told us this is because they were not invited.
29. At this meeting, the Police said they would interview the child before 3 September while the incident was fresh in their memory. It was planned that the interview would be conducted jointly by the Police and the child’s social worker.
30. The Police advised during the meeting that they believed the threshold was met for a joint s47 investigation to be conducted. The meeting agreed that the LADO should be consulted and so the Council made a LADO referral.
31. This case covers two Council areas as the children are under one authority and Mr X and his partner live in another.
32. Kingston Upon Hull Council made the LADO referral as agreed in the meeting. However, on 2 August 2020, six days after the meeting, the LADO at the neighbouring council took the decision that the case did not warrant LADO involvement.
33. While this decision was not taken by the LADO for Kingston Upon Hull, it would have been aware that this decision was taken.
34. A second meeting was held on 25 September 2020. By this point more than five weeks had passed since the allegation was made.
35. In this meeting, the notes recorded the lack of LADO involvement to date was believed to be a ‘miscommunication’ as the threshold had been met. It was also noted there had been poor coordination with the Police so far due to lack of LADO involvement. The Police were not present in this meeting.
36. There was no update available in the meeting on whether the Police had interviewed the children yet, so no decision could be made regarding the allegation. It was agreed that the Council would follow up with the Police that day and inform Mr X that the Police would interview him.
37. The next meeting was held on 16 October 2020, more than two months after the date of the allegation. This was the only meeting attended by the family’s Fostering Social Worker.
38. This meeting concluded the allegation was unsubstantiated based on the social worker’s interview with the child and the Police’s decision to take no further action following Mr X’s police interview. At that stage, the meeting attendees still did not know if the Police had interviewed the children.
39. One week after this meeting, Mr X was informed that the allegation had been found to be unsubstantiated.
40. Mr X then made a formal complaint to the Council about his experience of the investigation as well as other concerns regarding the support he and his partner received as foster carers.
41. The Council has accepted fault and says several learning points have now been explored with the Fostering Service following this case.
42. The Council says it is consulting with a specialist children’s law advice service regarding appropriate levels of carer supervision during an allegation which I understand will form additional training for relevant Council officers.

My findings

Allegation and investigation

43. The statutory guidance states there should be formal LADO oversight within 24 hours of the date of the allegation. In this case, it took over two months. This is fault.
44. When the neighbouring council declined to involve the LADO, this Council should have challenged that decision as the criteria for LADO involvement was clearly met. Its failure to do so was fault.
45. Without the LADO’s coordination there was a significant gap in understanding between professionals about who would interview the children. It also meant the investigation was allowed to drift and Mr X was not kept properly informed about the investigation’s progress.
46. The family’s Fostering Social Worker was not present in several meetings they should have attended on Mr X’s behalf and failed to collect potentially important investigation evidence from Mr X and his partner. This is fault.
47. Mr X’s Fostering Social Worker did not meet with him until 2 October 2020, approximately seven weeks after the allegation was made and shortly before the investigation ended, despite the Fostering Social Worker being a key professional in the allegations process. This is fault.
48. The Council failed to send Mr X copies of their safeguarding and managing allegations policies which it should have done to ensure his awareness of investigation timescales and procedures. This is fault. However, the Council did refer him for independent fostering support so he had access to some information.
49. All of the faults above caused Mr X and his family avoidable distress, as the lack of information and the drift during the investigation caused them to worry for longer than was necessary.

Comments made by social worker in a report during placement

50. The Council has now provided additional context to the social worker’s comments during the complaints process. It found the social worker’s comments in the report to be a professional judgement based on her observations but identified that the ‘What is Going Well’ section of the social worker’s report should have been completed. These are suitable actions and I will not investigate these issues further.

Lack of fostering support

51. The Council accepts that limited information was shared with Mr X and his partner prior to the children being placed with them and it has apologised. This was not in line with the National Fostering Minimum Standards and was fault leading to uncertainty for Mr X and his partner.

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Agreed actions

52. The Ombudsman cannot remedy the distress caused by the fact of an allegation being made. Instead we seek to remedy any injustice caused by procedures not being properly followed.
53. Within one month of the date of the final decision, the Council has agreed to:
• pay Mr X the token sum of £300 to recognise the avoidable distress he and his family experienced by not being properly updated and the investigation not concluding as quickly as it should have; and
• provide evidence of learning and service improvements following this case which have been implemented so far, as the Council advised it had in its complaint responses.
54. Within three months of the decision, the Council has agreed to demonstrate that it has reminded staff through appropriate training, of:
• the importance of communication with foster carers and timely investigations when an allegation has been raised;
• the criteria for LADO involvement during investigations into allegations of abuse;
• the importance during meetings of ensuring that a plan for who will interview the child about the allegation is in place, with clear deadlines;
• the role the foster carers’ Fostering Social Worker has during the process, especially regarding emotional support, attending meetings and collection of evidence; and
• the Council’s obligations to provide its foster carers with an up-to-date history of their potential foster children prior to placement.
55. Within three months of the decision, the Council has agreed to demonstrate that they have considered whether their own Managing Allegations policy should set out typical timescales for investigations into allegations of abuse, as we note it does not currently and having these timescales in its policy may help ensure against issues like this in future.

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Final decision

56. I have concluded my investigation. I have found fault leading to injustice and have recommended service improvements

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman