Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s decision not to regard the complainant as a kinship carer and her granddaughter as a looked-after child. There is insufficient evidence of fault on the Council’s part to warrant investigation.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Miss X, complains that the Council has refused to recognise that it placed her granddaughter in her care and that she is therefore a looked-after child.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse effect on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start an investigation if we decide the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Miss X is the paternal grandmother of a child, who I will refer to as Y. Y and her mother live with Miss X. Miss X says Y and her mother were placed with her by the Council. As such, she is a kinship carer for Y and is entitled to the appropriate financial support. She has asked that the Council pay her carers allowance, and that it be backdated to the point at which the Council placed Y and her mother with her.
6. The Council has declined Miss X’s request. It denies that Y is a looked-after child under section 20 of the Children Act 1989 and that Miss X is a kinship carer. It says it regards the placement as a family arrangement. Miss X does not accept the Council’s interpretation of the circumstances of the placement.
7. It is not for the Ombudsman to decide whether Y is a looked-after child. That is a matter for the Council. The question for the Ombudsman is whether there is evidence of fault in the way the Council made its decision that the placement amounts to a family arrangement. There is no such evidence.
8. The Council’s final response to Miss X’s complaint examined the circumstances of the period before the placement began, and the decision-making processes. It set out that, while it was envisaged that Miss X would provide support for Y and her mother, this was not intended to be in a formalised caring capacity and that, crucially, the responsibility for Y’s care would remain with her mother.
9. In the circumstances, the Council’s decision that Miss X is not a kinship carer does not appear to have been flawed, or based on a failure to properly consider the facts. Miss X disagrees with the Council’s interpretation of the situation, but that does not mean the Ombudsman can say it amounts to fault. Without evidence of fault, we cannot criticise the Council’s decision not to regard Miss X as a kinship carer, or intervene to substitute an alternative view.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault on the Council’s part.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman