Summary: We have discontinued our investigation into Miss B’s complaint about the support she received from the Council while looking after her niece. 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 Miss B, complains that the Council failed to support her properly while her niece, C, lived with her under an informal arrangement between August 2021 and August 2022.

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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 Miss 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 Miss B’s complaint

7. Miss B first complained to the Council in 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 most of Miss B’s complaints following all three stages of the complaint procedure. It accepted that it had failed to:
• deal with Miss B’s requests for support properly in August 2021, leading to a period of four months in which she received no support (until the hospital made a separate referral in December 2021);
• visit Miss B for almost eight weeks after allocating a social worker to C’s case;
• respond to Miss B’s telephone calls, or visit her regularly;
• assess C’s needs when she first moved in with Miss B, or decide if any financial support was needed. The Council only started paying Miss B £50 per week in May 2022 – nine months after C moved into her care – and only made an additional payment of £1,050; and
• focus on Miss B’s own needs while she was caring for C.
9. The Council did not uphold three of Miss B’s complaints. For all of these complaints, both the stage two investigator and the panel felt that there were no records available to support the complaints.

The Council’s offers to Miss B

10. To recognise her injustice, the Council offered Miss B:
• an apology for the complaints it had upheld;
• a further £950, on top of the £1,050 she had already received, to cover the initial costs of caring for C (as it appears £2,000 had been the figure initially agreed);
• another financial remedy of £500 to recognise the distress she likely experienced from all the Council’s delays; and
• a series of service improvements.

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 Miss B’s complaint, and I note that:
• each part of the complaint was considered and addressed by the Council;
• almost all parts of the complaint were upheld, and therefore there would be no benefit to Miss B in reinvestigating them; and
• if the stage 2 investigator and the panel are both of the view that there are no records to support the remaining complaints, it is unlikely that investigating further would lead to a different outcome for Miss B.
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 Miss B.
15. I have, however, considered whether the Council’s proposed remedies properly recognise the injustice it has caused.
16. It appears the Council agreed an allowance of £50 per week for Miss B in May 2022 (around nine months after she had started looking after C). If it had started this allowance nine months earlier, it would have paid Miss B roughly an extra £2,000. It now appears to have given her that amount as a back payment. This appears an adequate remedy for her financial injustice.
17. Miss B’s remaining injustice is distress – from the Council’s failure to communicate properly, the delays to its social work visits, the lack of social work visits, the delay to its provision of support, and the lack of focus on Miss B’s own needs.
18. The Council has already offered Miss B a payment of £500. This is in line with the Ombudsman’s suggested range and recognises that she suffered distress.
19. The Council has also taken steps to improve its service. These steps are a matter for the Council to decide, not the Ombudsman. Time will tell whether they are effective.
20. Miss B wants reimbursement of legal fees, but there is no evidence that she has needed to instruct solicitors to get to this point. We do not generally consider it necessary to use solicitors to make complaints.
21. Miss B has also told us about a new complaint which she could not add to her previous one. This is about C – who appears to now be back in Miss B’s care under a care order – not having a social worker. Miss B will need to exhaust the Council’s complaints procedure before coming back to us about this.

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Final decision

22. I have discontinued my investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman