Summary: Ms B complains about the actions of the Council following referral alleging emotional abuse of her daughter, D, by D’s father. She also complains about how the Council dealt with her complaint about the matter. The Ombudsman finds no fault by the Council in how it dealt with the concerns of abuse Ms B raised with it, and any faults in the statutory complaint investigation were not so significant as to warrant re-investigation of the complaint by the Ombudsman. There was however delay by the Council in completing its consideration of her complaint. As a result, Ms B was put to some time and trouble pursuing the matter, for which the Council has agreed appropriate remedy.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Ms B, complains in summary about the actions of the Council following referral alleging emotional abuse of her daughter, D, by D’s father. She also complains about how the Council dealt with her later complaint about the matter.

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What I have investigated

2. I have investigated how the Council responded to Ms B’s contact alleging emotional abuse of her daughter, and I have considered how the Council dealt with her complaint.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We cannot question whether a council’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), 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)
5. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
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

7. I have considered the information provided by Ms B about her complaint. I made written enquires of the Council and took account of the information it provided in response. I provided Ms B and the Council with a first draft of this statement and took account of comments received in response.

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What I found

Background

8. Ms B and her former husband have two children, a son and a daughter. Both children were living with Ms B under the terms of a court order, which also set out contact arrangements. In September 2015, Ms B reprimanded her daughter D, then aged 12, for having told lies. D had then spoken to her father and had gone to stay with him at his address.

Ms B contacts the Council

9. On 4 October 2015, Ms B sent an email to the Council. In it she set out what had happened the previous week and said that since her son had decided not to see him, the children’s father had been putting undue pressure on D to live with him. She said that she felt D was being pressured or groomed by her father who was buying her gifts, allowing her age-inappropriate freedoms, and emotionally pressuring her into feeling sorry for him by saying he was unwell. Ms B used the term ‘emotional abuse’ and told the Council she wanted it to look at this urgently and arrange for a specialist to speak to her daughter. Ms B noted that parents need to find a way to sort out contact issues without involving the children and if this cannot be achieved they must consider taking legal action to ensure the children are not placed under undue pressure. Ms B indicated though that given the circumstances with D’s father reaching a resolution was not possible and while she noted that the Council’s response might be to advise her to take legal action, she felt this could take months or years by which time damage to the child would have been done.
10. The following day Ms B telephoned the Council about the same matter. The Council’s records note that it advised her to seek legal advice and that Ms B said she could not afford to do so and wanted the Council to intervene. The Council advised that as there were no safeguarding concerns regarding D being with her father this would remain a civil issue. The Council followed this call with an email to Ms B the same day in which it reiterated the advice given and said that the advice given that Ms B should speak to her solicitor regarding any issues about contact was also in the outcome of a combined assessment which had been completed.
11. The assessment referred to had been completed in May 2015, and in that document the social worker had concluded as follows:
    “In my view there is no role for the local authority as the assessment did not highlight any safeguarding concerns that would suggest that either [of the children] are at risk of significant harm. …This continues to be a contact issue and I would recommend that if either parent is unable to comply within the stipulations of the contact order, so [the children] are not pressurised or emotionally affected in any way, this should return to court if the parents are unable to reach agreement and sustain amicable behaviour”.

Referral to children’s services – the process

12. A referral, in the context of child protection, is when someone contacts children’s services because they have concerns about the safety and well-being of a child. Anyone can make a referral including a parent.
13. When information is received, by way of a referral, which indicates that there are concerns about the safety and well-being of a child, children’s services must decide what type of response is required. The Council’s safeguarding process sets out that the social worker will consider any previous records held in relation to the child and family and assess any concerns about either the child's health and development, or actual or potential harm, which justify further enquiries, assessments or interventions.
14. In this case the decision of social services, having considered the information Ms B gave in her email and telephone call, was that no action was necessary in respect of safeguarding D. While Ms B may disagree with that decision, it was a matter of professional judgment of social services officers taking account of the individual circumstances of the case.
15. Ms B is dissatisfied that the short email response she received from the Council did not set out how it had reached its view that no action in respect of safeguarding was necessary in response to her report of emotional abuse. However, while noting Ms B’s view that I could be more critical of the Council on this point, I am not minded to pursue it further. This is because even if the Council had considered Ms B’s contact required safeguarding action, it is unlikely on balance that such action would ultimately have led to any significantly different outcome, given the court’s subsequent decision to award residency of D to her father notwithstanding Ms B concerns about D being emotionally abused by him.

What happened next

16. In November 2015 Ms B applied to the court for enforcement and variation of the existing court order the terms of which required both children to live with her except for alternate weekends and alternate Fridays when they were to reside with their father. When the matter came before the court in January 2016 D’s father indicated to the court that he was seeking a variation of the order to provide that D live with him and have contact with Ms B. The proceedings led to the making of a court order to that effect in November 2016. In reaching this conclusion, the court must have been satisfied having considered all relevant evidence, that it was safe for D to continue to live with her father.
17. I have set out at paragraph 14 above the reasons why I do not consider the Council was at fault in the way Ms B’s allegation of emotional abuse was dealt with. And, given the court’s subsequent ruling referred to in paragraph 15, even if there had been fault in the process, any injustice to Ms B arising from it would not be deemed significant.

The Council’s investigation of the complaint

18. The law sets out a three-stage procedure for councils to follow when looking at complaints about children’s social care services. At stage 2 of this procedure, the Council appoints an Investigating Officer and an Independent Person (who is responsible for overseeing the investigation). If a complainant is unhappy with the outcome of the stage 2 investigation, they can ask for a stage 3 review. If a council has investigated something under this procedure, the Ombudsman would not normally re-investigate it unless he considers that investigation was flawed. However, he may look at whether a council properly considered the findings and recommendations of the independent investigation.
19. Regarding the Council’s investigation of the complaint in this case, the panel which considered this at the third stage of the procedure found the Independent Investigator’s report was thorough and well-researched, but noted the following main points in respect of the stage 2 investigation:
1. That the Independent Investigator and Independent Person had not attempted to interview D or record why they hadn’t done so. At the stage 3 panel they said they had not done so because D was not party to the complaints; it would not be in her best interests to go over historic issues; and it could interfere with her relationship with her father and the possibility of rebuilding a relationship with her mother. The panel’s view was that D should have been asked, possibly through a trusted professional, if she did have anything to say since the voice of the child is paramount in complaint investigations;
2. Ms B’s new partner and another partner of D’s father had not been interviewed in connection with children’s services assessments, and both of those people might have provided an additional perspective. This related to Ms B’s complaint that the social services department had failed to consider all the information available to it. The Independent Investigator’s view was that a combined assessment report which had been prepared was very detailed, and that information provided by third parties is not evidence in the way professionals information is, but akin to hearsay;
3. The Independent Investigator’s report was not seen as an attack on Ms B, but more could have been done to include her perspective on some of the issues; and
4. Some changes of wording were deemed necessary in the report, for example to refer to the complaint using the title Ms, and to delete the word ‘only’ where reference was made to two occasions of physical abuse.
20. However, notwithstanding these identified failings, the panel considered the investigation was acceptable. If it had not done so, it could have referred the matter back for further investigation. I see no grounds to disagree with the panel’s position here. In respect of the failings identified, on balance it is more likely than not that the outcome and recommendations would have been the same if those failings had not occurred. Overall, I am satisfied that the Council’s investigation was not so fatally flawed as to lead me to conclude the Ombudsman should re-investigate the complaint.
21. Ms B is dissatisfied with the panel’s recommendation in respect of her complaint about the Council’s use of the phrase ‘acrimonious divorce’, which she feels evidenced a lack of empathy for victims of domestic abuse and an approach to her case that did not provide the right platform for her concerns to be taken seriously. Action was taken to remove this phrasing from the complaint investigation report, and the panel’s concluding view was that this complaint should be determined as ‘non-resolvable’. While I acknowledge Ms B’s views and feelings in this matter, further investigation of this point would not be able to establish that the use of this terminology impacted on how the Council responded to her reports of abuse.
22. Ms B considers that the Council has not taken appropriate action in response to the recommendations of the stage 3 panel. The statutory guidance in respect of the complaints process says that when the Council issues the stage 3 response it should set out how it will respond to the recommendations made and what action will be taken. If the responding Director deviates from the recommendations they should demonstrate their reasoning in the response. In this case for example, one recommendation made was that D’s school should be reminded about the importance of making a referral to children’s services if it had reason to believe her father was seeking directly or indirectly to restrict her access to pastoral support or other support mechanisms at school: the Council set out in its response that all schools are aware of their responsibilities under the established safeguarding protocol. I am satisfied the Council’s response followed the statutory guidance, with the exception of the time taken.
23. The Council took too long to complete its consideration of Ms B’s complaint through the statutory process. She complained on 5 March 2017, and the Council issued its final response after stage 3 on 14 November 2018. Although not all the delay in the process overall was a result of fault by the Council, it has acknowledged there was some delay on its part. That led to avoidable time and trouble for Ms B in pursuing her complaint.

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Agreed action

24. In recognition of the injustice caused to Ms B by its part in the delay referred to above, I recommended that within four weeks of the date of the decision on this complaint the Council pays her £250.
25. The Council agreed to this recommendation.

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Final decision

26. I have completed my investigation on the basis set out above.
27. 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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Parts of the complaint that I did not investigate

28. For the reason set out in paragraph 6, I did not investigate the actions of the Council associated with the service of notice of a court order: that matter is associated with the conduct of court proceedings.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman