Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council (19 016 642)

Category : Children's care services > Friends and family carers

Decision : Not upheld

Decision date : 10 Mar 2021

The Ombudsman's final decision:

Summary: Ms X complains that the Council failed to fulfil its promise of financial support after she obtained a Special Guardianship Order. She also complains that the Council refused to allow her to change her social worker. There is no fault by the Council.

The complaint

  1. Ms X says the Council failed to fulfil its promise of financial support after she obtained a Special Guardianship Order (SGO) in relation to her grandson, B. She also complains that she asked for a new social worker as she was unhappy with the report produced by the Council for court, but her request was denied.

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What I have investigated

  1. I have investigated the Council’s decisions with regards to financial assistance and Ms X’s request for a change in social worker.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

  1. 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)
  2. 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)
  3. We cannot investigate a complaint about the start of court action or what happened in court. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5/5A, paragraph 1/3, as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

  1. I considered information provided by Ms X and the Council. I also sent this draft decision to Ms X and the Council and have considered their comments.

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What I found

Legal Background

  1. Special Guardianship is an order made by the Family Court that places a child or young person to live with someone other than their parent(s) on a long-term basis. The person with whom a child is placed will become the child’s Special Guardian.
  2. Government guidance on the Special Guardianship Regulations sets out the circumstances in which local authorities should provide financial support to a Special Guardian. These include situations where there is a financial obstacle to a guardianship arrangement being made, and where the child requires special care. There is no overall obligation on local authorities to provide support in every case in which a Special Guardianship Order (SGO) is made.

What happened

  1. Ms X has been her grandson B’s primary carer since he was a few months old. In 2019, when B was 11 and in the context of disagreement with B’s mother over his residence, Ms X sought legal advice and decided to apply to the Family Court privately for a SGO.
  2. Prior to the SGO being made, Ms X discussed the possibility of the Council funding the application. The Council advised Ms X in writing in April 2019 that as it had no safeguarding concerns over B, and was happy for him to live with his parents or Ms X and had no involvement in B’s placement with Ms X, it would not fund the SGO application. The Council added that it did not intend to carry out a financial assessment with regards to financial support for Ms X once the SGO had been achieved. Instead it advised Ms X to claim the relevant benefits once she had parental responsibility for B.
  3. Ms X told me she had been advised by the Council that she would be eligible for financial aid once she had obtained the SGO; however she provided no evidence for this and if she had been, this advice was contradicted by the April 2019 letter.
  4. Ms X went ahead with the application, which she funded with the help of her parents. The Court asked the Council to provide an SGO report and support plan to help it make its decision. The Council’s SGO report included a section on Ms X’s income and expenditure under which “Special Guardianship allowance” was mentioned but left blank, without an attributed figure.
  5. The Council support plan identified B’s basic health and education needs and identified services such as Early Help which were available to offer support in various eventualities. The plan did not identify financial support needs but said where financial support had been agreed the Special Guardian would have a copy of the financial agreement. Ms X was not given an agreement.
  6. The SGO was granted in June 2019. The Council wrote to Ms X shortly after this reiterating that no financial assistance would be provided “as this is a family arrangement”. Ms X then complained to the Council saying it had done a financial assessment and had decided she was not entitled to support. Ms said that she was now in financial difficulties and wanted to claim a “grandparent tax”. She also complained about the actions of a social worker in relation to the court proceedings. The Council referred Ms X to Early Help Services but reiterated its position that it would not provide financial support. It did not uphold the complaint about the social worker.
  7. Ms X complained again, stating that while she now had an allocated Early Help worker who had organised delivery of food parcels, this was insufficient given her financial difficulties. She also requested a new social worker as the previous one “will not reopen my case and look at the financial side”. She then took her complaint to us, saying she had been advised she would get an SGO payment and had then been turned down due to the actions of the social worker.
  8. Ms X has told me that her financial situation has changed since the SGO was awarded in that she is now being paid Universal Credit and has lost some benefit income related to her role as a carer for another relative.
  9. The Council has told me Ms X’s request for a change in social worker was made at a time when its service had no ongoing role in the matter, its only involvement having been the production of the report to court, which by that time had been completed. The Council therefore saw no benefit in a change.
  10. In response to my draft decision Ms X provided details of the meeting at which she said the Council advised her that obtaining an SGO was a necessity if she wanted legal responsibility for her grandson. The discussion was prompted by a letter from B’s mother threatening to remove him from Ms X. Ms X also said the Council had advised at this meeting that she would receive financial aid. However Ms X had no written record of this.

Analysis

  1. The documentary evidence points to the Council having made clear to Ms X prior to the SGO and afterwards that it did not consider that she was eligible for support as a special Guardian. This is because the Council regarded her guardianship role as a private arrangement, as it was entitled to do. Ms X’s testimony that the Council advised her she would need to obtain an SGO if she wished to have legal responsibility for B is not at odds with this position.
  2. There is no evidence to support Ms X’s view that she is entitled to an SGO allowance. The Council referred Ms X to Early Help Services for advice on benefits and other forms of assistance as set out in its support plan. In response to my draft statement, Ms X told me the Council is now re-evaluating her financial circumstances. There is no evidence of fault by the Council.
  3. As the Council had no ongoing role in the issue, there is no fault by the Council in its denial of a change in social worker.

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Final decision

  1. I have completed my investigation with a finding of no fault by the Council.

Investigator’s final decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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