Summary: Mr X says the Council has failed to carry out the actions it agreed to take after his complaint was partially upheld. He says it failed to remedy failings in its communication with him about his children. He says this caused him injustice as it increased his distress and affected his relationship with his children. The Council has accepted fault and suggested a remedy we consider appropriate.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains that the Council did not properly address his complaints about the Council’s failings in communication with him about his three children, who are in care. He said this has had a serious effect on him, triggering his anxiety and affecting his relationship with his children.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
3. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe:

• it is unlikely we could add to any previous investigation by the Council, or
• it is unlikely further investigation will lead to a different outcome, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

4. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone could take the matter to court. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended)
5. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
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

• I spoke with the complainant.
• I researched the law and guidance
• I reviewed the Council’s response to our enquiries.
• I gave both the Council and the complainant the opportunity to comment on the draft decision.

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What I found

7. The Children Act 1989 requires councils which provide children’s services to set up a three-stage complaint process.
8. The legislation says all functions under Part 3 of the Children Act 1989 may form the subject of a complaint under the statutory process. This includes support to families and children in need via short breaks.
9. The procedure to be used is set out in the Children Act 1989 Representations (England) Regulation 2006 and the statutory guidance issued in 2006: ‘Getting the best out of complaints’. The Guidance was drawn up with input from the Ombudsman.
10. Local authorities do not need to consider complaints made more than one year after the grounds to make the complaint arose. (Regulation 9). In these cases, the Complaints manager should write to advise the complainant their complaint cannot be considered, providing reasoning. There should generally be a presumption in favour of accepting the complaint unless there is good reason not to.
11. The time limit can be extended at the local authority’s discretion if is still possible to consider the representations effectively and efficiently.
12. There are three stages to the statutory social services complaints procedure:
1. Stage one - Local resolution. The maximum amount of time that Stage 1 should take is 20 working days.
2. Stage two - Investigation stage. The Council should appoint an investigating officer to carry out a detailed investigation with an independent person to oversee the investigation – the investigation should be completed within 25 working days. This may be impractical in some cases where the complaint, for instance, is particularly complicated. It may therefore be extended to a maximum of 65 working days. All extensions should be agreed by the Complaints Manager.

The stage two timescale must start from the date that the complaint is finalised.

Once the investigating officer has finished his report, a senior manager should act as Adjudicating Officer and consider the complaints, the investigator’s findings, the conclusions and recommendations. The Adjudicating Officer should ensure that any recommendations are implemented. The Complaints Manager should monitor implementation and report to the Director on what action has been taken on a regular basis.

3. Stage three - Review stage. A complainant can request an independent complaints review panel to consider the complaint. The panel must consist of three independent people. Independent means a person who is neither a member nor an officer of the council.
3. The Guidance says that review panels are designed to, among other things:

• Listen to all parties;
• Consider the adequacy of the Stage 2 investigation;
• Reach findings on each of the complaints being reviewed;
• Support local solutions where the opportunity for resolution between the complainant and the local authority exists

14. The Guidance says the complainant has the right to bring a representative to speak on his behalf.
15. It says panels should be considered in the presence of all the relevant parties with equity of access and representation for the complainant and local authority.
16. The Panel must be held within 30 working days of the receipt of a request for a review. The local authority should acknowledge the complainant’s request for a Review in writing within two days of receiving it. The Panel Review should be provided locally and with due regard to the complainant’s availability and convenience.
17. The complainant should be notified of the Panel’s date and location in writing at least 10 working days before the Review Panel meets and be invited to attend.
18. Panel papers should be sent to panelists no later than 10 working days before the date of the Panel.
19. The complainant has a right to attend the Panel and should be assisted in attending as appropriate.
20. The local authority can also proceed with the Panel in the complainants’ absence at the complainant’s request.
21. The Council must send its response to the Panel’s recommendations to the complainant within 15 days of receiving the Panel’s report.
22. The complainant has the right to go through all three stages if they wish.

Background facts

23. Below is a summary of key events. It does not record everything that happened, and it is not meant to. I can share limited information. The history to this case is complex and Mr X has confirmed his main concern is around the lack of communication from the Council. He says this is where his main injustice lies.

Stage One

24. Mr X complained to the Council on 11 June 2018. The Council wrote to him on 19 June 2018, summarising the content of his complaint.
25. The Council provided a stage 1 response within 10 days. The Council now understand that Mr X considered he had actually contacted the Council in November 2017. However, the Council did not consider this letter instigated the beginning of a complaint because Mr X specifically said in the body of the letter, “This letter is not a complaint.”
26. Mr X had raised a number of issues involving allegations that the Council had not kept him informed and had not properly investigated allegations against him. The Council provided evidence he had been kept informed about the care proceedings involving his children. However, Mr X felt it misrepresented his other concerns, ignoring his main complaint points. He asked for a reinvestigation.
27. The Council wrote to him and said it would not reinvestigate safeguarding decisions. It sought clarity about what his complaint points were. It asked Mr X to address specific questions about what he felt the Council had failed to do.
28. He said, among other things, that:

• Deadlines for investigations, action plans and other deadlines had been missed;
• He had not been kept informed about what had happened with a police investigation;
• He was often not given enough notice for contact with his children or informed of social worker changes;
• He felt that, because of delays in a parenting assessment, he was unable to make decisions in his life, such as what type of property to move to;
• He felt that the lack of communication with him, specifically about allegations involving him, was crucial;
• He felt the Council had misrepresented his complaint in the stage one complaint by failing to address his actual complaint points and over-emphasising some of the criticisms he had made.

Stage Two

29. The Council delayed in sending Mr X’s its stage two response. It provided the response on 19 December 2018, 168 days from receipt of the stage two request.
30. The Council says there were a number of reasons for the delay. It says it requested further clarification of the issues from Mr X and did not receive the information it needed until 12 August 2018. Even then, it took the Council 129 days to respond.
31. The Council also says that staff leave, the complexity of the case and other delays contributed to the delay. It has apologised.
32. With regards to Mr X’s complaint points, the Council partially upheld all but one of Mr X’s complaint points. It agreed that:
• The Council did not ensure undertakings were delivered in time.
• Not all of the issues raised by Mr X at the first stage of his complaint were dealt with by the response.
• There had been occasions of short notice communications from the Council.
• There had been delays in sending documentation to Mr X; and
• There were issues with social workers communicating dates of case reviews to Mr X. The Council’s view was that while the overall communication had been ‘adequate’, it should have been better.
• It accepted there had been a ‘miscommunication’ about the content of Mr X’s initial complaint. It said that not all his concerns had been addressed.
33. The Council did not uphold that changes in social workers had compounded communication problems and held up progress.
34. The Council made a number of recommendations to remedy the issues identified. These were to be dealt with by arranging a visit from a senior manager to Mr X.
35. This was to, in summary:
1. apologise to Mr X;
2. to negotiate a timely resolution for outstanding work;
3. to agree a communication plan for future work; and
4. to provide answers to ongoing concerns.
36. Mr X was not happy with its outcome.

Stage Three

37. Mr X confirmed his request to go to Stage three on 10 March 2019. He wrote a lengthy statement expressing his concerns about the way the Council had dealt with his complaint. He also raised new issues about the care provided to his children. The Council advised that this review would not look at those issues.
38. Mr X produced an amended statement, focusing mainly on the way he felt he had been treated by council staff and the lack of communication from council officers about events in his children’s lives or about important reviews relating to their care. He was also concerned that he had not been provided with information about allegations that had been made about him.
39. He was also aggrieved that the Council said it could not provide expenses for travel to the stage three panel.
40. Mr X said he would attend the panel meeting, but he did not do so.
41. The stage three panel (the Panel) met 42 working days after Mr X’s second request for stage three. The Panel response was provided four days later than the statutory required date.
42. The Panel concluded, in summary, that:

• Mr X should have been informed about the timeframe for investigations. It said complaint issues also needed to be recorded and agreed with a customer in advance of any investigation.
• Mr X’s complaint that changes in social workers had compounded problems for him should have been partially upheld.
• Mr X’s complaint that the stage one response did not fully cover the issues he raised, should have been fully upheld.

43. The Panel was concerned that no action plan or work had been undertaken to arrange the meeting that had been recommended at stage two. The panel recommended that: “…there should be a co-ordinated approach and joint meeting of professionals working with the three children and [Mr X] to agree a consistent approach to working together in the future.”

The Council’s response to Mr X’s complaint that recommendations made have still not be complied with

44. The Council says that, in line with the recommendations from Stage two, a meeting was held between Mr X and a council officer. The officer did not keep records of the meeting but the Council accepts that Mr X remained unhappy. The Council says it held off organising a further meeting as it awaited the outcome of Stage three.
45. Following the Stage Three meeting, and one other attempt at a meeting, Mr X met with a senior officer on 3 July 2019. The Council’s record of the minutes of that meeting, shows that a number of the issues that were supposed to be addressed by the meeting, were not. This included a failure to provide a formal apology and a failure to have a focused discussion on the points raised by Mr X in his response to the stage one investigation.
46. However, the meeting did produce a list of action points, including providing Mr X with monthly updates about his children.
47. The Council has, in its response to the Ombudsman, shared information about Mr X’s concerns over allegations made against him. And suggested I should share it with Mr X. These are matters which should have been covered with Mr X in his meeting of 3 July 2019. It is not appropriate for the Ombudsman to act as an intermediary.
48. In response to Mr X’s complaint that communication continues to be poor, the Council says Mr X has been provided with the contact details for the relevant social workers who he would need to contact. It says its view is that its officers respond appropriately to communications from Mr X.
49. The Council accepts it is responsible for instances of poor communication, particularly around the reviews. It says it has made efforts to improve communication, ‘but challenges remain’.
50. It accepts there were errors with the stage one process, namely that the ‘heads of complaint’ should have been named and that the investigator should have been clear about what she intended to investigate
51. It accepts there were delays in both stage two and three of the complaints process. It also accepts that not all the recommendations of the Stage two process were carried out.
52. It has offered:

• A further meeting, if Mr X wishes, to fully address the recommendations of the stage two investigation, including providing a full response to Mr X’s statement of 25 June 2018, and to fully apologise for the failings in the complaints process;
• to create to create a Clear Expectations Document/Plan based on the minutes of the meeting of 3 July 2019; and
• To pay Mr X the sum of £500 to recognise the time and trouble taken by Mr X in progressing the complaint and that the Council did not fully implement the recommendations of the independent investigation, and the length of time that has passed since the independent investigator made his recommendations in November 2018.

Analysis

53. The Council has, following the stage three panel hearing, fully upheld one of Mr X’s complaints and partially upheld all his other complaints. There is, therefore, little that the Ombudsman can add to the investigations and findings that the Council has made. The Council accepts, for instance, that it took too long to complete the complaints process. It took far too long, in particular, to provide conclusions to the stage two process. This is fault causing injustice. The Council has accepted this and has offered a remedy which includes an acknowledgement of this.
54. I do not consider there is evidence the Council was at fault for not providing funding to Mr X to attend the stage three panel hearing. The records show that he had said he was able to attend.
55. However, the Council failed to fully implement the recommendations it made at stage two of its complaint process.
56. There were reasons why there was a delay in setting up a meeting with a senior officer to implement the recommendations and I can understand why the Council might have considered it advisable to await the outcome of the stage three panel before arranging a further meeting, in line with the recommendations.
57. But, when this meeting was arranged, in July 2019, it should have implemented the recommendations that were clearly set out in the stage two report.
58. The Council also failed to address some of the crucial questions Mr X sought answers to. The Council, in its response to our enquiries, has suggested we send the documents it provided in response to our enquiries to Mr X, in order to answer some of those queries, in particular its response to the allegations made against Mr X. These and other concerns should have been fully addressed as part of the meeting in July 2019. If, for some reason, this was not possible at that meeting, the Council should have re-engaged with Mr X and ensured it provided him with the answers he sought. He should not have had to come to the Ombudsman. The Council’s failure to properly engage with Mr X is fault.
59. The Council’s communications with Mr X have not been adequate. I accept there were difficulties in managing communication across different areas. But it should have managed these difficulties.
60. The difficulty in communication has not been limited to the issues Mr X raised about decisions made involving his children – in failing to fully implement the recommendations it considered necessary to resolve Mr X’s issues, the Council has continued to fail in its communication.
61. This failure has caused Mr X distress. However, I am unable to say how this has affected his mental health or his relationship with his children.
62. In my view, the Council has suggested an appropriate financial remedy. I have set out in detail the steps the Council should take to remedy the faults in communication I have found.
63. I have also recommended that the Clear Expectations Document/Plan should be drawn up using the minutes of the meeting recommended at para 65(a). The minutes of the meeting of 3 July 2019 can be used to inform the Clear Expectations Document/Plan. But I consider, to remedy the difficulties with communication there have been in the past and to help both parties work towards resolution, it makes sense to address the current situation in any forward-looking plan.

Recommended action

64. Within two weeks of our final decision, the Council should pay Mr X the sum of £500, in recognition of the time and trouble and distress caused by the failings in its approach.
65. Within one month of our final decision, the Council should:
1. Offer to meet with Mr X to fully address the recommendations of the stage two investigation, including providing a full response to Mr X’s statement of 25 June 2018, and to fully apologise for the failings in the complaints process. The meeting should be attended by a senior manager from Children’s Services, with line management responsibility. It should include representation of relevant staff from Children’s Services, such as the Operations Manager, Team Manager, IRO and allocated social workers. The Council should ensure it addresses Mr X’s concerns about its approach to the allegations made against him. The Council should send a summary of how Mr X’s issues have been addressed at the meeting and the minutes of the meeting, to Mr X, within two weeks of the meeting.
2. Within two weeks of the above meeting, the Council should draw up a Clear Expectations Document/Plan produced on the basis of the minutes of the meeting of the above meeting. It should gather the expertise of relevant professionals, working with Mr X’s children and agree a consistent approach to working with Mr X in the future. It should provide evidence to the Ombudsman that it has done this.
3. It should send the Clear Expectations Document/Plan to Mr X and provide him with the opportunity to comment. It should then arrange another meeting to resolve any issues.
4. The Council should consider reviewing how the arrangement is working in practice three months after it is put into implementation. It should provide a report on this review to Mr X and to the Ombudsman.

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Final decision

66. I have found the Council at fault and made recommendations that are in line with the recommendations the Council suggested itself to remedy the injustice.

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Parts of the complaint that I did not investigate

67. I have not investigated Mr X’s concerns about a parenting assessment carried out by the Council. The documents show Mr X has requested an appeal of the assessment. This is a matter for the courts.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman