Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council not providing a translator in a matter concerning Mr X’s infant grandchild coming to live with him and his wife.

The complaint

1. Mr X said the Council failed to provide a translator and that the Council wrongly refused to provide financial support to care for his grandchild.

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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 there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating. (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 and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. The complaint correspondence shows Mr X’s daughter was suffering from poor mental health and the Council had concerns about her care of her child, born weeks earlier. The correspondence shows she wrote a letter to the Council nine days before a child protection conference was due, and about a month before her untimely death. The letter was quoted in the correspondence. It stated that she had reluctantly decided it would be better for Mr X and his wife to care for her child as she was currently unable to do so.
6. A friends and family placement exists where a child comes to live with a family after a decision of a council. Where this happens before a council reaches a decision, it is a private family arrangement. The evidence I have seen shows the child’s mother decided Mr X and his wife should look after the child, whom she had already left with them for significant time since birth, before the Council reached any decision about who should care for the child. The Council might later have asked Mr X and his wife to care for the child had the child’s mother not already written the letter. But this does not mean it had any duty to offer payment once the child protection conference confirmed the child was safe with Mr X and his wife. The provision of a translator could not have altered a situation that already existed at least nine days before the Council had to decide who the child should live with.

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Final decision

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

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman