Summary: I am unable to investigate Miss C’s complaint about how the Council supported her a after she started caring for her godchild. However, there was fault in how the Council dealt with her complaints about the matter. It will offer Miss C a payment to remedy the time and trouble she went to pursuing this complaint.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Miss C, complains about how the Council supported her after she started caring for her goddaughter. I shall refer to Miss C’s goddaughter as D. Miss C says:
• D should have been treated as a looked after child by the Council in 2014 and should have provided Miss C the appropriate financial support.
• When Miss C raised the matter with the Council in 2016, support still was still not provided, despite a Service Manager telling her that D was a looked after child.
• Miss C also complains about how the Council dealt with her complaints about the matter.

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What I have investigated

2. I have investigated how the Council responded to Miss C’s request for support in 2016, and how it dealt with her complaints about the matter.

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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. 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)
5. 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)
6. 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

7. As part of the investigation, I have:
• considered the complaint and Miss C's comments; and
• made enquiries of the Council and considered the comments and documents the Council provided.
8. I also sent a draft version of this decision to both parties and invited their comments.

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What I found

Background

9. The events referred to in Miss C’s complaint started in June 2014, when D was 13 years old and living with her mother, whom I shall refer to as Mrs Z.
10. Miss C is D’s godmother and was previously a close friend of Mrs Z’s. Records show that D would often stay at Miss C’s home, where she had her own room, clothes, and a toothbrush.
11. In June 2014, the Council received a referral stating that Mrs Z had assaulted D. As a result, the Council carried out a Section 47 investigation, and started a Child and Family Assessment.
12. The Council agreed that D could live with Miss C on a temporary basis.
13. D’s Social Worker recorded concerns that D was at risk from Mrs Z and that she should be considered a Child in Need while support work continued. Records show the Council communicated this decision to Miss C on two occasion.
14. The Council’s assessment concluded that Mrs Z agreed that D could stay with Miss C. The Council agreed to fund the cost of Miss C obtaining a Child Arrangement Order through the courts. However, Miss C did not pursue this option.

What happened

15. In August 2016, Miss C wrote to the Council asking it to recognise her as a foster carer and provide her with suitable financial support to assist her looking after D.
16. In October 2017, Miss C complained to the Council that she had not received a response to her request for support, and she was now in financial difficulties, having to borrow money for everyday living expenses to support her and D.
17. In November 2017, a Service Manager responded and said they had spoken to the social worker and team manager involved when Miss C started caring for D and reviewed all the relevant documents.
18. The Service Manager concluded that D was placed with Miss C as a looked after child and that the Council should have treated this as a fostering arrangement. The Service Manager said that Miss C’s current social worker would be in contact to ensure appropriate payments are made.
19. In November 2018, after no response was received, Miss C contacted the Council again. The Council responded and explained that the Service Manager had reached their conclusion in isolation, and had failed to consult with senior management, in accordance with the Council’s decision-making procedure.
20. The Council said that it did not consider that D was looked after, and the Council did not have a duty to accommodate her. It said that it was a mutual arrangement for D to live with Miss C, and that records show that Miss C was told D was not looked after, so the arrangement would not be funded by the Council.
21. The Council said it did not have a legal duty to accommodate D at this time, because she was safe in Miss C’s care. The Council said if Miss Z had tried to take D back, it would have assessed the situation and take the necessary steps to ensure D’s safety.
22. The Council said its records show that Miss Z had made payments to Miss C, which is considered to demonstrate that the arrangement was an informal one between the two parties.
23. The Council said it accepted that the Service Managers response was incorrect and would have caused Miss C frustration. As a good will gesture the Council offered to pay Miss C three-months of Connected Person’s Allowance, as well as birthday and holiday payments.

Analysis

24. Miss C first contacted the Council in August 2016, to ask for financial support, because D should have been treated as a looked after child. After receiving no response, Miss C complained.
25. The Service Manager wrote to Miss C and said that D should have been treated as a looked after child, and therefore appropriate financial support would be arranged. No further correspondence was sent to Miss C, and so she complained again.
26. The Council has now provided Miss C with a final response which explained that the Service Manager failed to follow the proper procedures, when responding to Miss C’s complaint.
27. Having considered the Council’s response and I am satisfied that it fully explained why it did not consider D to be a looked after child, and the account it gave of what happened in 2014 is reflected in the records at that time. I am therefore unable to find fault with how the Council justified its decision.
28. The Council did however accept that the incorrect response from the Service Manager would have caused frustration, and it subsequently offered Miss C a goodwill gesture to address this.
29. The Ombudsman’s guidance on remedies explains that when complainants have suffered frustration due to fault, this can lead to distress. We would usually look to remedy this distress with a moderate sum of between £100 & £300.
30. Having considered the distress caused by the fault identified by the Council in this case, I consider the offer it has made to Miss C to be appropriate and in accordance with our guidance.
31. However, there were other faults in how the Council handled Miss C’s complaints. The Council failed to respond to Miss C’s correspondence and complaints, meaning she had to go to some significant time and trouble pursuing the complaint. I do not consider that this was addressed in the Council’s final response.
32. The Ombudsman’s remedy guidance explains that when a complainant has been to significant time and trouble pursuing their complaint, we recommend payments of between £100 to £300, which should reflect the level of difficulty experience by the complainant.
33. Having considered the significant delays in the complaints process in this case, I have decided that a time and trouble payment of £200 is suitable in this case.

Agreed action

34. The Council has agreed that, within one month of my final decision, it will offer to make Miss C a payment of £200 to remedy the time and trouble she went to raising her complaint with the Council and then the Ombudsman.

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Final decision

35. I have concluded my investigation on the basis that there was fault in how the Council dealt with Miss C’s complaints.

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Parts of the complaint that I did not investigate

36. I have not investigated what happened prior to Miss C raising her complaint in August 2016 because these matters were not raised within the 12 month period as permitted under the Local Government Act 1974, and Miss C has not raised any exceptional circumstances as to why these issues were not raised before.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman