Summary: Mr X complained about how the Council managed contact arrangements between him and his children after they were taken into care. The Council was at fault because it failed to consider this complaint under the statutory children’s complaints procedure. The Council has agreed to complete a stage two investigation of Mr X’s complaint.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained about how the Council managed contact arrangements between him and his children after they were taken into care. He said he did not see his children between 2013 and 2017 and his current contact is not as agreed in the Care Order.
2. Mr X is unhappy about the lack of contact with his children and feels it has negatively affected his health.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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)
4. 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)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I discussed the complaint with Mr X and considered the Council’s response to it.
6. I referred to the Department for Education statutory guidance “Getting the Best from Complaints” and The Children Act 1989 Representations Procedure (England) Regulations 2006.
7. Mr X and the Council both had the opportunity to comment on my draft decision.
8. Under our information sharing agreement, we will share this decision with the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted).

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What I found

The law and guidance

9. There is a formal procedure, set out in law, which councils must follow to investigate complaints made by looked-after children and children in need. This procedure applies to complaints made by parents of these children, who can complain about the council’s actions in relation to them. This includes parental contact with children in care.
10. The procedure involves three stages:
• Stage one - local resolution by the council. This stage takes between ten and twenty working days.
• Stage two - an investigation by an investigator who will prepare a detailed report and findings to which the council must respond. The investigator should not line manage anyone involved in the complaint. An independent person should also be involved. If a complainant is still dissatisfied after stage two, they have the right to ask for their complaint to be considered at stage three. A stage two investigation for a complex case should take no more than 65 working days.
• Stage three - consideration by an independent review panel which may make further recommendations. A review panel should begin within 30 working days of the request.

What happened

11. The Court made a Care Order in 2013, placing Mr X’s children into the care of the Council. Mr X said when the Court made the Care Order, it recommended monthly supervised contact between him and his children.
12. Mr X said following this, he had no contact with his children until 2017. In April 2017, Mr X complained to the Council. In the complaint, he said the Council:
• had not kept to the Court’s recommendations for contact with his children;
• had stopped inviting him and his wife to ‘looked after children’ reviews;
• constantly changed his children’s social workers; and
• failed to tell him when their daughter had gone into hospital.
13. The Council wrote to Mr X in May 2017. It apologised and said, “there had been numerous social workers and this has impacted on the level of contact between the social workers and yourselves”. It said it had tried to organise contact in line with the Care Order but also needed to consider the children’s wishes and feelings.
14. Mr X sent a further email to the Council in August 2017 as he remained unhappy with its first response. The Council sent Mr X another letter. It said it was unable to say why previous contact with his children had not happened and why communication had been poor. It accepted it had made errors in the past. It said the Council continued to encourage his children to have contact with him.
15. In December 2018, Mr X telephoned the Council to complain after he had been unable to arrange contact with his children before Christmas. He said the social worker told him he could not see his children till 3 January 2019.
16. The Council responded on 20 December 2018. It said his children knew about the contact arranged for the new year and were happy about this. The Council directed Mr X to the Ombudsman if he was unhappy with its response.
17. Mr X contacted the Council after the arranged contact for 3 January 2019 did not take place. The Council arranged another contact for the 7 January 2019. The Council again directed Mr X to the Ombudsman if he remained unhappy about how it had dealt with his complaint.

My findings

18. Mr X complained to the Council about the arranged level of contact he was having with his children after the Court made a Care Order. The Council must consider such complaints under the defined statutory procedure.
19. The Council failed to consider Mr X’s complaint under the statutory procedure and did not complete a stage two independent investigation after he said he was unhappy with its stage one response. That was fault.
20. This has caused Mr X an injustice. He remains unhappy with the level of contact he has with his children and he is not clear why the Council has not followed the Court’s recommendations.

Agreed action

21. Within one month of my final decision, the Council has agreed to:
• start a stage 2 investigation into Mr X’s complaint. The scope of the investigation should address the points Mr X raised when he first complained to the Council in 2017 and his on-going concerns about the frequency of contact with his children.

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Final decision

22. The Council was at fault for failing to consider Mr X’s complaint under the statutory complaints procedure. The Council has agreed to start a stage two investigation which remedies the injustice caused. Therefore, I have completed my investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman