Summary: The Council was at fault for how it arranged contact sessions between Miss X’s two children while one of them was in care. It was also at fault for how it dealt with Miss X’s complaints. It has agreed to offer symbolic payments to recognise the injustice caused. It has also agreed to offer a further symbolic payment to recognise the injustice caused by a separate matter – communication with Miss X prior to care proceedings – for which it accepted it was at fault before our involvement.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I refer to as Miss X, complains about the Council’s social work involvement with her children in the immediate aftermath of, and months following, her younger son’s birth.
2. I refer to Miss X’s older son as Y, and her younger son as Z.
3. In the days following Z’s birth, the Council sought an interim care order which resulted in Miss X and Z going into a fostering placement together for three months. Y went to live with his father during this period.
4. Miss X complains that:
1. The Council failed to properly inform her that it would be seeking an interim care order for Z shortly after he was born.
2. The Council failed to facilitate court-ordered contact between Y and Z. This was supposed to happen three times a week, but only happened four times in three months.
3. The Council refused to consider her complaint about Z’s social worker, and said this was because of ongoing court proceedings. However, she was unaware of any court proceedings at the time (in, or around, September 2021).
4. The Council also refused to deal with her other complaints properly, and did not allow her to escalate them.
5. Miss X says the Council’s failure to deal with Z’s case properly caused her distress. She wants it to investigate her complaint fully.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

6. 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)
7. Service failure can happen when an organisation fails to provide a service as it should have done because of circumstances outside its control. We do not need to show any blame, intent, flawed policy or process, or bad faith by an organisation to say service failure (fault) has occurred. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1), as amended)
8. If we are satisfied with an organisation’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)
9. 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

10. I considered:

• Information from Miss X and the Council.
• The statutory guidance document, ‘Getting the best from complaints’. This provides instructions to councils on how to deal with children’s social work complaints.
• The Ombudsman’s guidance on remedies.

11. Miss X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

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What happened

12. The Council began the pre-proceedings process for Z in October 2021.
13. In March 2022, Miss X complained about her social worker. The Council refused to respond to her complaint, saying it did not have to “consider a complaint where to do so would prejudice … the ongoing pre proceedings process”.
14. Z was born later in March. The Council started care proceedings two days later, and, five days after the birth, Miss X and Z went into a fostering placement together.
15. At the time, Z’s social worker recorded that Miss X refused the Council’s help to arrange contact between her and Y. Her family would do this without support.
16. In April, there was a case management hearing. According to the Council’s records, the court said Y and Z should have been seeing each other, and contact should start immediately (three times a week).
17. In June, the Council asked Miss X if it could arrange a taxi for Y to get to contact so the sessions were not affected by his social worker’s availability. She agreed.
18. In July, the Council reviewed an assessment for Z. This said contact between Y and Z took place every Tuesday and Thursday, and every other weekend. It also said:

There has been many missed family contact sessions due to transport difficulties. The taxi has either been late or not turned up at all and this has caused the family a lot of stress.

19. Miss X and Z returned home in July. The court issued a supervision order for Z in August, which remains in effect.
20. In September Miss X complained about Z’s social worker again. She said her complaint should no longer be affected by court proceedings.
21. The Council responded to Miss X’s complaint. It acknowledged that contact sessions had been “affected by unreliable transport”. It also said:

There is … no evidence of this decision [to initiate care proceedings] being formally shared with yourself … this decision was the conclusion of the pre-birth assessment … and I can see a telephone call took place … between the social [worker] and yourself, where you confirmed that you had received the assessment but had not read it … due to the seriousness of the decision to initiate proceedings, I do not consider leaving the assessment with you to read by yourself, an appropriate form of communication.

22. The Council apologised to Miss X. It told her she could ask for a director or head of service to review her complaint if she wished.
23. In October, Miss X complained again. She said she had been unable to escalate her previous complaint. She repeated her concerns.
24. The Council responded to Miss X’s complaint again. It was the same respondent as before. The Council said:

… we apologise unreservedly for your son having to wait to be picked up [by a taxi – on one occasion on the way to contact]. This is not what the social work team wanted.

25. Again, the Council told Miss X that she could ask a director or head of service to review her complaint. She did so, and, again, the same respondent dealt with the request. The Council sent Miss X a brief response. It did not provide further information about how Miss X could take things further if she was dissatisfied.
26. In March 2023 Miss X made another complaint about similar issues. The Council refused to deal with this, saying the complaint had already been answered.

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What I found

Complaint A: Information-sharing

27. The Council has already accepted that it did not properly share information with Miss X about its intention to go to court in March 2022. As a result, it would not be proportionate to reinvestigate this complaint.
28. I have, however, considered whether the Council should offer a remedy to Miss X.
29. It is likely that any distress Miss X suffered from the communication failure was only a very small part of her overall distress, most of which would have been the unavoidable result of the care proceedings.
30. Nonetheless, having reviewed our guidance on remedies, I consider it appropriate for the Council to offer Miss X a symbolic payment to recognise her injustice.

Complaint B: Contact

31. Although there are not many records describing the Council’s attempts to transport Y to contact sessions, I am satisfied, on balance, that it failed to do this on several occasions. I am basing this on its own assessment and complaint responses.
32. The Council told Miss X that, although the taxi service it arranged was unreliable, the Council was not to blame for this. And this was probably true. However, the Council had agreed to arrange the taxi service and, through no fault of their own, Y and Z missed out on contact sessions because of the failure of that service. This was fault by the Council.
33. It is unlikely Z, who was a baby at the time, suffered any significant injustice from the missed contact sessions. However, Y (who was 11) not only missed out on contact with his brother, but also had to spend time waiting around for taxis which never came.
34. The Council should apologise to Y directly and offer him a symbolic payment to recognise his injustice.

Complaints C and D: Complaints-handling

Statutory guidance

35. Councils can decide not to consider complaints if doing so would prejudice any ongoing court proceedings.
36. If a council decides this, it must write to the complainant to explain.

My findings

37. Although Miss X refers to a complaint in September 2021, the Council’s earliest record of a complaint from her was in March 2022. This was well into the pre-proceedings window and only shortly before care proceedings were started.
38. As a result, the Council does not appear to have been fault for rejecting her first complaint. It was entitled to refuse to look at the complaint in the circumstances, and it wrote to her to explain its decision (in line with the statutory guidance).
39. I am unclear, however, about how the Council processed Miss X’s next complaints.
40. Her first complaint response offers a review by a director or head of service. But she says she was not able to escalate the complaint. I have seen no explanation from the Council for this.
41. Her second complaint response also offers a review by a service director or head of service. She asked for this review; however, the Council sent her a brief response seemingly authored by the same respondent, and did not tell her how she could take things further if she was dissatisfied.
42. This was fault by the Council. It should apologise to Miss X for its complaint-handling and offer her a further symbolic payment to recognise the time and trouble she went to while trying to navigate its complaints procedure.
43. However, I do not consider it necessary for the Council to now respond to Miss X in any more detail. She has received two separate responses from the Council and has brought her complaint to us. A further response would be excessive and would probably not be of any benefit to her.

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Agreed actions

44. Within four weeks, the Council has agreed to:

• Write to Y and apologise, in a manner suitable for his age and level of understanding, for its failure to provide reliable transport to his contact sessions with his brother.
• Make a payment of £250 to Miss X, on Y’s behalf, to recognise his injustice.
• Make a payment of £250 to Miss X to recognise her injustice from its failure to communicate with her properly before starting court proceedings.
• Make a further payment of £100 to Miss X to recognise her injustice from its failure to deal with her complaints properly.
• Send us an action plan setting out how it will avoid similar communication, sibling contact and complaints-handling problems happening again in future. In doing so, it will consider the possibility of staff training, staff supervision, and procedural changes (although it will not necessarily limit its consideration to these three possibilities).

45. The Council has agreed to provide us with evidence it has completed these actions.

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Final decision

46. The Council was at fault for its communication, arrangement of sibling contact sessions and complaints-handling.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman