Sunderland City Council (19 002 550)

Category : Children's care services > Other

Decision : Upheld

Decision date : 08 Jan 2020

The Ombudsman's final decision:

Summary: Mr X complained about the Council’s actions in connection with its involvement with his child as a child in need. The Council carried out a robust investigation of his complaints, upholding some of them, but was at fault for delay in the complaints process. The Council will pay Mr X the £600 it offered during the course of the investigation to acknowledge his time, trouble and avoidable distress.

The complaint

  1. Mr X complained about the way the Council handled its involvement with him when involved with his child as a child in need and when asked to provide a court report for private court proceedings. He says the Council’s actions exacerbated the personal problems he was already experiencing at a difficult time.

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What I have investigated

  1. The Council considered Mr X’s complaints under the statutory children’s complaints procedure. I have not re-investigated the complaints but I have investigated delay in the procedure and how the Council considered the procedure’s findings and recommendations.
  2. The final section of this statement contains my reasons for not investigating the rest of the complaint.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

  1. We investigate complaints about councils and certain other bodies. Where an individual, organisation or private company is providing services on behalf of a council, we can investigate complaints about the actions of these providers (Local Government Act 1974, section 25(7), as amended). Sunderland Council carries out its children’s services functions through another organisation. The Council remains responsible for those services and for the actions of the organisation providing them. In this decision statement I refer to the actions of the organisation as actions of the Council.
  2. 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)
  3. 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 the Council has investigated something under this procedure, we would not normally re-investigate it unless we consider the investigation was flawed. But we may look at complaints of delay and whether the Council properly considered the findings and recommendations of the independent investigation.
  4. 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)
  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)

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How I considered this complaint

  1. I have considered:
    • information from Mr X’s complaint and from a telephone conversation with him;
    • the regulations setting out the children’s statutory complaints procedure - The Children Act 1989 Representations Procedure (England) Regulations 2006;
    • government guidance on the children’s statutory complaints procedure - Getting the Best from Complaints: Social Care Complaints and Representations for Children, Young People and Others, 2006;
    • the Council’s complaints procedure; and
    • the Council’s response to my enquiries.
  2. I gave Mr X and the Council an opportunity to comment on a draft of this decision. I considered the comments received before making the final decision.
  3. 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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Legal background

  1. Section 17 of the Children Act 1989 gives councils the duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in their area who are in need. It says, so far as is reasonably consistent with that duty, councils must promote the upbringing of such children by their families, by providing a range and level of services appropriate to those children’s needs. Where it appears to a council a child in its area is in need the council may assess the child’s needs and set out what support it will provide the child and/or the child’s family in a child in need plan.

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What I found

  1. Mr X and his ex-wife have a child, B.
  2. A hospital had concerns about B and referred them to the Council. The Council carried out a child in need assessment.
  3. After their separation Mr X and his ex-wife went to court for decisions about where B should live and go to school. During the court proceedings the court asked the Council to prepare a Section 7 report.
  4. Mr X had concerns about the way the Council’s officers handled B’s case. He also had concerns about the content of the Section 7 report. In March 2018 Mr X complained to the Council about these issues. The Council dealt with the complaint under the statutory children’s complaints procedure. It did not investigate the content of the Section 7 report.

Stage 1 of the complaints procedure

  1. Someone making a complaint should get a response at Stage 1 within 10 working days. A council may extend that to 20 working days if needed. The Council made Mr X aware of the two possible deadlines at the outset. It responded to Mr X in 15 working days. However, it accepts it did not confirm to Mr X that an extension was needed.

Stage 2 of the complaints procedure

  1. A council should complete the Stage 2 procedure within 25 working days or extend that to a maximum of 65 working days.
  2. The Council did not receive Mr X’s first request for the complaint to go to Stage 2. Mr X chased up a response two weeks later and the Council used the date of that contact, in early May 2018, as the start date for Stage 2.
  3. The Council appointed an investigating officer two weeks later and an independent person two days after that. A month later the officers met Mr X to agree the statement of complaint to be considered at Stage 2. Mr X agreed the statement of complaint at the end of July. The complaint had 15 separate parts to it. The timing of the meeting and agreement of the complaint were affected by the availability of all parties.
  4. The Council started its investigation at the beginning of August, 65 working days after receiving Mr X’s request to go to Stage 2. The investigating officer issued their report at the end of November. In response to Mr X’s request for an update in mid January 2019 the Council apologised for a continuing delay caused by the independent person’s illness. The independent person issued their report at the end of January 2019. The Council sent Mr X its adjudication letter, ending
    Stage 2, at the beginning of February 2019.
  5. Overall, Stage 2 took 193 working days. The Stage 2 outcome changed the decision on one of the complaints from ‘Not upheld’ to ‘Unable to prove or disprove’.

Stage 3 Review panel

  1. A council should complete Stage 3 within 50 working days of the request to go to Stage 3. Within that timescale, a review panel should issue its findings within 5 working days of the panel hearing and a council should respond to the panel’s findings within 15 working days.
  2. Four days after receiving the adjudication letter Mr X asked for his complaint to go to Stage 3. The Council arranged a review panel to hear the complaint. The Council says the panel met on the earliest date it could, at the end of March 2019. The panel sent its findings to Mr X on 4 April 2019. The Council responded to the panel’s findings and wrote to Mr X on 12 April 2019.
  3. Stage 3 took 51 working days. The Stage 3 outcome changed the decision on another of the complaints from ‘Not upheld’ to ‘Upheld’.

The Council’s consideration of the complaints procedure’s findings and recommendations

  1. At the end of the procedure, the Council made these decisions on Mr X’s 15 complaints:
    • Upheld – six
    • Partially upheld – one
    • Unable to prove or disprove – three
    • Not upheld – five.
  2. Recommendations were made both at Stage 2 and Stage 3. The first recommendation was for the Council to apologise to Mr X for the identified failures by the Council. In its adjudication letter on 1 February 2019 the Council acknowledged the upheld complaints and apologised for each one.
  3. At Stage 2 there were five other recommendations regarding information provided to families, distribution of minutes, the complaints procedure system and social worker preparation for meetings. The Council has provided information to show it has responded to these recommendations. The information shows the Council:
    • has put together a new information pack for families about social work intervention and what families can expect;
    • in September 2019, re-launched its Practice Standards for Effective Intervention with Children and Families;
    • carried out relevant staff training; and
    • issued reminders to its Team Managers.
  4. At Stage 3 the review panel made six further recommendations:
    • about availability of social workers for complaint investigations;
    • about adding to the Council’s records so Mr X’s record of errors in an assessment document are recorded electronically alongside the existing document;
    • to send Mr X all the Child in Need review meeting minutes;
    • to send Mr X the Council’s revised complaints leaflet;
    • for the Council to tell families when a social worker is to change; and
    • to improve social work practice regarding getting parental consent and opportunities for parental feedback.
  5. The Council has provided information to show it has responded to the Stage 3 recommendations. The information shows the Council:
    • has now considered how best to contact social workers who have left the Council;
    • has added Mr X’s views to its record of the assessment document;
    • sent Mr X the revised complaints leaflet and the Child in Need review meeting minutes;
    • carried out relevant staff training; and
    • changed the process for telling people when there is a change of social worker.

The Council’s offer to remedy injustice caused to Mr X

  1. In response to the Ombudsman’s enquiries the Council said it recognised the lengthy complaints procedure, delay in providing Mr X with the minutes he was entitled to and the upheld elements of his complaint caused injustice to Mr X. It offered to pay Mr X a total of £600. That comprised £300 to acknowledge his time and trouble and a further £300 for avoidable distress. In response to a draft of this decision the Council confirmed it will pay Mr X the £600.

Findings

  1. The Council carried out a robust investigation of Mr X’s complaints and I have no grounds to re-investigate.
  2. A children’s complaints procedure should not last more than 6 months. Mr X’s complaints procedure took almost a year. The delay occurred during Stage 2 which took almost three times as long as the maximum time the regulations allow. Part of that delay was the result of unforeseen illness of one of the parties involved. On top of that, it took 65 working days to agree a statement of complaint and it took a further 85 days for the Council to complete its investigation. These are significant delays and are fault by the Council.
  3. The Council has apologised for the upheld complaints and has taken appropriate action in response to the complaints procedure recommendations. It has also agree to pay Mr X £600. Altogether this is a satisfactory remedy for the injustice caused to Mr X by the Council’s fault.

Agreed action

  1. Within four weeks of this decision the Council will pay Mr X £600 to acknowledge his time, trouble and avoidable distress.

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Final decision

  1. I have completed my investigation because the Council’s agreed action will remedy the injustice caused to Mr X as a result of its fault.

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Part of the complaint that I did not investigate

  1. Under Section 7 of the Children Act 1989 a court considering any question in relation to a child may ask a council to report on matters relating to the child’s welfare. This is called a Section 7 report.
  2. One of the complaints Mr X put to the Council was about the content of its
    Section 7 report for the court case about B. The Council did not consider that as part of its complaints procedure because it was a court document.
  3. The Ombudsman cannot consider the content of the report either. The report was used in the court proceedings and Mr X had the opportunity to challenge its content and recommendations during the proceedings. The law says 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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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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