Summary: The Council was not responsible for Mr B leaving his job. Although it arranged a contact session between Mr B and his son during Mr B’s working hours – which it had agreed not to do – the decision to leave the job rather than request a rearrangement of the contact session was Mr B’s alone. As a result, the Ombudsman has not found fault with the Council.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I refer to as Mr B, complains that he had to leave his employment because the Council arranged a contact session between him and his son (who was in local authority care), and the session was arranged during his working hours.
2. Mr B also says the Council upheld other complaints as part of the Children Act 1989 representations procedure, but failed to give him a satisfactory financial remedy.

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What I have investigated

3. I have investigated Mr B’s complaint about having to leave his job because of how the Council arranged a contact session.
4. The final section of this decision statement sets out why I did not investigate other matters.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

5. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. 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. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe the fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
7. 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)
8. The Courts have said that we cannot investigate a complaint about any action by a council, concerning a matter which is itself out of our jurisdiction. (R (on the application of M) v Commissioner for Local Administration [2006] EHWCC 2847 (Admin))

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How I considered this complaint

9. I spoke to Mr B about his complaint, and considered information from Mr B and the Council.
10. I wrote to Mr B and the Council with my draft decision and gave them the opportunity to comment.

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What I found

11. In August 2011, Mr B was working as a self-employed contractor in the Council’s area. However, his son was in foster care over 100 miles away.
12. Mr B had agreed with the Council that his contact with his son would take his work arrangements into account. The Council agreed that, on Fridays, he would travel from work and would collect his son from school.
13. However, on 22 August the Council sent Mr B a contact schedule. This said that, on Friday 2 September, Mr B’s contact with his son would take place at 12:00 pm.
14. Mr B says he did not contact the Council to raise concerns about the timing of the contact session, because he was afraid that the Council would interpret that he was being difficult. He says he was worried that the Council would stop his contact with his son. He says he left his employment to ensure that he could attend the contact session.
15. The Council investigated this issue as part of the Children Act representations procedure. At stage 3 of the procedure, the independent panel said it:

… could appreciate why [Mr B] stated he felt uncomfortable and unable to challenge this change of arrangement with [the Council] due to previous issues he had experienced. The Panel confirmed this was an example of the poor social work practice throughout this case.

16. The panel decided that the contact should not have been arranged during Mr B’s working hours, and upheld that element of his complaint. However, it decided the Council was not responsible for Mr B’s decision to leave his job.

Analysis

17. The Council has already acknowledged that Mr B’s contact with his son on 2 September 2011 should have been organised with his working hours in mind. This did not happen, for which the Council has already admitted it was wrong. There is no reason to investigate this matter further.
18. The question which Mr B has brought to the Ombudsman is whether the Council – in arranging contact while he was at work – was responsible for him leaving his job.
19. I acknowledge Mr B’s reasons for feeling nervous about asking to rearrange the contact session, and accept that he wanted to avoid the risk of his contact being stopped fully. I note that the independent panel, at stage 3 of the Children Act representations procedure, also accepted Mr B’s reasoning, and noted relationship difficulties he had experienced with a Council officer at that time.
20. However, this is not the same as the Council being responsible for Mr B leaving his job. Although he clearly experienced difficulties with the Council – and its failure to arrange contact outside his working hours was one such example of the difficulties he faced – he did not attempt to bring this to the Council’s attention before leaving his employment.
21. If he had done this and the Council had refused to rearrange the session, or had stopped his contact because of his request to rearrange, then it could have been possible to say that leaving his job was the only way for him to see his son. However, this was not the case.
22. I do not doubt Mr B’s motivation for leaving the job, and see no reason not to believe his reasons for why he did not contact the Council beforehand. However, I cannot say that the Council would not have changed the time of the session if he had asked. As a result, I do not consider the Council responsible for his decision to leave his job.
23. Although the Council upheld a number of Mr B’s complaints during the Children Act representations procedure, I have not investigated them. The only complaint I have investigated is specifically about whether the Council was responsible for his loss of employment. As a result – and for the reasons given above – I have not found fault with the Council.

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Final decision

24. The Council was not responsible for Mr B leaving his job. Although it arranged a contact session between Mr B and his son during Mr B’s working hours – which it had agreed not to do – the decision to leave the job rather than request a rearrangement of the contact session was Mr B’s alone. As a result, I have not found fault with the Council.

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Parts of the complaint that I did not investigate

25. I did not investigate Mr B’s complaint about the remedies offered when the Council upheld a number of his complaints during the Children Act representations procedure.
26. One of Mr B’s upheld complaints was about a child seat not being fitted correctly in a Council officer’s car. This matter did not cause either Mr B or his son an injustice, so it would not be a good use of public resources to investigate how the Council dealt with this complaint.
27. Mr B’s other upheld complaints are about information the Council provided to court during childcare proceedings. I cannot investigate a complaint about what happened in court, and I cannot investigate a council’s actions in relation to what happened in court. This includes how a council considered such matters as part of a complaint investigation. As a result, I could not look at this part of Mr B’s complaint.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman