Summary: Ms X complained about the Council’s actions after it took her children into care. There was no fault in how the Council dealt with Ms X’s complaints. I will not investigate Ms X’s other complaints because they are about issues which are outside the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.

The complaint

1. Ms X complained about the way the Council has treated her children since they were taken into care. She states the Council:
1. will not let her see her children;
2. allowed her oldest child to behave in an inappropriate way when they were under its care;
3. has appointed her with 38 social workers but she has only met three of them;
4. failed to notify her of meetings and decisions about her children;
5. failed to keep her updated about the children; and
6. wrongly reported her to the police.
2. Ms X also complained the Council has failed to properly consider these, and another 152 complaints she has made since 2015, under the statutory children’s complaints procedures.
3. Ms X says this has affected her emotionally and she is depressed. She wants the Council to return her children to her care.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We cannot question whether a council’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
5. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe it is unlikely further investigation will lead to a different outcome or we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants.
6. 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

7. I spoke to Ms X and considered the information she provided.
8. I made enquiries of the Council and considered its response.
9. I have written to Ms X and the Council with my draft decision and considered their comments before I made my final decision.

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What I found

10. The law sets out a three-stage procedure for councils to follow when looking at complaints about children’s social care services.
11. When the council accepts a complaint under the children’s complaints procedures, the presumption is that the complaint will go to Stages 2 and 3 if that is the complainant’s wishes.
12. Where a council considers a complainant is demonstrating unacceptable behaviour, including abusive, threatening or offensive behaviour, the council can take action to restrict the complainant’s access to its offices and staff. In these circumstances the council should write to tell the complainant of its action and how long the restriction will last.
13. When a complainant continues to behave in an unacceptable way, the council can decide to terminate contact with them and discontinue any investigation into their complaint.

What happened

14. Ms X has several children. There are care orders and injunctions in place in relation to Ms X’s access to them.
15. Towards the end of 2018, Ms X made a number of complaints concerning matters connected to both herself and her children. These included the complaints listed in paragraph 1 of this statement. The Council decided to deal with them under the statutory children’s complaints procedures.
16. The Council met with Ms X in November 2018. At this meeting Ms X said the outcome she wanted to her complaints was for her children to be returned to her.
17. On 10 January 2019, the Council sent Ms X a written response to her complaints. The letter asked Ms X for further information in relation to some of her complaints so the Council could consider them further. It also advised that if Ms X was unhappy with the Council’s response to her complaints, she should contact it with the reasons why and what actions she required as a resolution. The Council said the stage 2 investigation would be carried out by an independent investigator.
18. The letter concluded by warning Ms X that the Council was considering classifying her as a persistent and unreasonable complainant.
19. Ms X was unhappy with the Council’s response and on 10 February, she asked for her complaints to go to stage 2 of the statutory complaints’ procedures.

Second set of complaints

20. Ms X contacted the Ombudsman on 22 January 2019 and complained the Council had reported her to the police because she had threatened to harm her children. Ms X sent us a copy of an audio recording made in relation to the police visit.
21. We sent the audio recording to the Council. It responded on 6 February 2019 and said it would consider the matter under stage 1 of the statutory children’s complaints procedures.
22. The Council issued Ms X on 28 February 2019 with its stage 1 response. This addressed the complaint about the audio recording as well as other matters Ms X had raised over the previous weeks. The letter reminded Ms X that she had not provided the Council with the information it had requested for it to be able to progress some of her previous complaints.
23. The Council advised Ms X she could ask the Council to consider her new complaints under stage 2 of the complaints process.
24. On 5 April, the Council wrote to Ms X and said it was restricting her access to Children’s Services and the Social Care Complaints Team. The Council explained its reasons for this decision and gave Ms X two email addresses to use. It informed her it would only acknowledge new complaints or enquiries and that the matter would be reviewed in six months’ time. The Council gave Ms X a right of appeal.
25. In response to my enquiries the Council said it would consider Ms X’s complaints under stage 2 of the statutory complaints procedures if some clarity could be achieved about the complaints she wished to progress.
26. The Council later informed the Ombudsman that it considered it was inappropriate to proceed further with its investigations and gave the reasons why.

My findings

27. There was no fault in the way the Council dealt with two sets of complaints Ms X brought under the statutory children’s complaints procedures. There was also no fault in the way it made its decision to classify her as a persistent and vexatious complainant. The Council has now provided cogent arguments why it does not consider it appropriate to continue investigating Ms X’s complaints. This is a decision it is entitled to make and there was no fault in the way it was made.
28. In addition, I cannot achieve the outcome Ms X wants, which is for her children to be returned to her. Only the courts can achieve this. Furthermore, I do not have the power to investigate complaints a) and b) in paragraph 1. This is because these concern decisions made by the courts and the Ombudsman cannot investigate a complaint about what happened in court. Therefore, I will not investigation these matters further.

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Final decision

29. There was no fault in the Council’s actions. Therefore, I have completed my investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman