Summary: Mrs X complains the Council failed to support the placement of a young person with her family and acted wrongly in de-registering them, causing worry and questioning her professional judgment. There was fault by the Council in some matters, but this did not cause injustice to Mrs X or her family.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Mrs X, complains the Council:

• Made inadequate, rushed preparations to place a young person with her and her husband in December 2017 at three days’ notice;
• Provided inadequate support when the placement began to break down; and
• Failed to act properly when it de-registered her and her husband as foster carers.

2. She says her family has been subject to a witch hunt, caused worry and that her professional judgment has been called into question.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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)
4. 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’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe:

• the fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement,
• (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

5. Under the information sharing agreement between the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman and the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted), we will share this decision with Ofsted.

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How I considered this complaint

6. I read Mrs X’s complaint and spoke to her on the telephone. I made written enquiries of the Council and considered its response, which included some confidential third-party information I could not share. I checked the Council’s own written procedures for such placements. I shared a draft of this decision with both parties and invited their comments, but received none.

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What I found

7. The Council accepted Mr and Mrs X as supported lodgings carers for young persons aged over 18 in the summer of 2017. The Council placed one young person, Mr Z, with them in December 2017. This placement ended in March 2018. The Council de-registered them from its scheme, confirming this at a panel held in December 2018.

Making the placement

8. Mrs X says the Council did not tell them that Mr Z had a conviction for carrying a bladed instrument or show them the risk assessment.
9. The Council accepts there were some gaps in information, though it says it made Mr and Mrs X aware that there would probably be issues with Mr Z.

What happened and was it fault?

10. The Council’s procedure does not contain specific requirements for the process of placing a young person with a family. And I have seen no evidence of any statutory minimum period. So, placing a young person at three days’ notice is not automatically fault.
11. I would not have expected the Council to show Mr and Mrs X the risk assessment it carried out just before placing Mr Z. While they would need to know what to expect, the document was third-party data. So, there was no fault in not sharing it.
12. I checked the risk assessment. This was balanced and took the view Mr Z did not place an unacceptable risk to Mrs X or her family. It identified specific issues involving aggression and explained their known context.
13. Regardless of this, I would have expected Mrs X to have had some insight into the nature of many of the young people placed in such schemes. She has made it clear that she has significant professional experience of children with serious behavioural difficulties. She and her husband also received training before being accepted for placements. I have seen the outline of this training, which, like all local authority training, deals with the significantly higher needs and challenging nature of young people who need such placements compared to other young people.
14. I also note the correspondence between Mrs X and the Council before the placement shows she expressed no reservations about starting immediately, being keen for the first placement after waiting four months since acceptance onto the scheme.
15. Therefore, I do not find that there was any Council failure to prepare Mrs X and her husband for the placement, or that it was responsible for the short notice.

Support when the placement was breaking down

What happened?

16. In terms of routine contact, the Council’s procedure states this will be weekly by visit or telephone at first, decreasing later once the placement is secure. The Council also provides a monthly, supported lodgings meeting for carers.
17. The Council provided copies of the supervision notes for Mrs X and her husband. These show a first visit, four weeks into the placement on 28 December 2017, then fortnightly to 23 February 2018, when the contact was by telephone.
18. There were three monthly support meetings in January, February and March 2018. The Council’s records state Mrs X attended in January, but not February or March. These records show her husband attended none of the meetings.
19. The first evidence on the records of Mr and Mrs X asking for help was on 22 February 2018. The records state Mrs X asked for a call back because Mr Z’s brother had been visiting and Mr Z’’s behaviour had changed. The records state a worker tried to call back. The next day, 23 February 2018, she made contact. The records of the call state the Council contacted Mr Z’s brother’s social worker in another area. It also agreed to ask a sessional worker to contact Mr Z as this had not yet happened.
20. Three days later, on 26 February 2018, Mr and Mrs X asked to end the placement. They said Mr Z was not taking the criminal process against him seriously (he had not carried out his community service earlier that week) and was being led astray by his brother. They said they wanted to give seven days’ notice on the placement, but would prefer it to end immediately.
21. The Council told the couple the same day that there was a 28-day notice period. It told me that, while the period was not stated on the contract they signed, that it was clearly stated in training.
22. On 27 February 2018, the Council set up a placement instability meeting for 5 March 2018. The purpose of such a meeting is to try to resolve issues to prevent a placement breaking down. It told them it would operate a 28-day notice period if the placement could not be saved. Mr and Mrs X were due to spend some time away shortly after this and they were concerned Mr Z would damage the house and allow his brother to visit. The Council confirmed on 28 February 2018 that Mr Z’s brother should stay away from the couple’s home.
23. At the placement instability meeting on 5 March 2018, Mr Z said he had fallen out with Mr X about three weeks earlier. Mr and Mrs X said the appearance of Mr Z’s brother had caused the change. Mr Z made a threat at the meeting that he might cause trouble in the remaining period when he lived with the couple. A social worker recorded that she asked him about this afterwards and he said the threat was not genuine. She stated it would have been better if she had told Mr and Mrs X this.
24. On 19 March 2018, matters came to a head. There is a detailed record of a telephone call from Mr X to the Council. This record appears contemporaneous. In this record, which I have paraphrased, Mr X stated he felt upset and intimidated in his own home, not daring to go out in case Mr Z damaged the property while he was out. It recorded Mr X said he was being treated in this fashion by the Council because of his age and ethnic origin, and was the victim of political motivation. It recorded Mr X said he felt like he was living in social housing, that Mr Z was a bully and that he was abusing him. The record stated the worker also spoke to Mr Z, who said Mr X was goading him, but he was staying in his room, out of Mr X’s way. The record stated the worker said an action plan to remove Mr Z would be needed. The record stated the worker called back the same day, but that by then Mr X had called the police following an alleged threat to kill by Mr Z. The record stated the Council collected Mr X the same day, finding him standing on the street with his belongings in a large plastic black bag.

Was it fault?

25. The Council’s contact was not at the frequency stated in its procedure. Therefore, I find the Council at fault in that respect. I will deal with any injustice this caused later.
26. However, the records show Mr and Mrs X did not ask for help until 22 February 2018. Thereafter, the Council acted within five days to address the issues raised by contacting Mr Z’s brother’s social worker, agreeing to chase up a sessional worker and setting up a placement instability meeting. By this time, Mr and Mrs X had already decided to end the placement as soon as possible, giving the Council only limited opportunity to support them. I do not find the Council at fault here.
27. I have no evidence the contract Mr and Mrs X signed contained a 28-day notice period. However, other than in dire circumstances, a notice period on a placement would be a reasonable expectation owing to the possible psychological damage sudden disruption might cause to the young person placed. It is more likely than not, on the balance of probabilities, that this expectation would have been made clear by the Council to anyone offering a home to a child or young person. The Council did not at first suspect any crisis, so it was entitled to take the view that the couple’s request for an immediate end to the placement was unjustified. I note that on 19 March 2018, the Council acted immediately. I do not find it at fault in the way the placement ended.

De-registration

28. The social care records show the Council told Mr and Mrs X on 23 March 2018 they would be de-registered. However, it took until 12 December 2018 before a panel formally took the decision and until 19 December 2018 to write to Mr and Mrs X.
29. Taking almost nine months was fault. I will deal with any injustice this caused later.
30. Mrs X says the report presented to the panel was re-written and was also inaccurate. The Council has confirmed an earlier version lacked analysis
31. I have not sought to test all the opinions given in the report to the panel. Nor have I dealt in detail with Mr and Mrs X’s response to the report. This is because I do not need to do so to decide if the Council had grounds to de-register the couple, that a panel acting properly would have accepted.
32. First, the Council took the view Mr and Mrs X changed their view of Mr X in a few days in February 2018 and sought to end the placement at short notice. This is supported by the records. It decided this was a cause for concern. A panel acting properly would have been likely to share the same concern.
33. Second, I have referred earlier to an account of a telephone call involving Mr X and the Council on 19 March 2018. The content of this call, as recorded in detail, appears on the balance of probabilities to be at least fairly reliable. The Council decided what Mr X said during the call raised multiple concerns for any future placements. A panel acting properly would have been likely to share this concern.
34. Either of these concerns would have justified a decision by a panel, acting properly, to de-register Mr and Mrs X.

Injustice

35. The frequency of the Council’s contact did not cause the placement to break down. It acted promptly when Mrs X asked for help. I do not therefore find the fault caused injustice to Mr and Mrs X.
36. Although the Council has apologised for this, the time the Council took to arrange the panel did not cause injustice to Mr and Mrs X. This is because the Council’s decision they should be de-registered was upheld by the panel, which acted properly in doing so.

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Final decision

37. I have completed my investigation and closed the case as the fault found caused no injustice to Mr and Mrs X.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman