Summary: The Council was not at fault for deciding Mrs B’s behaviour was unreasonable, or for restricting her contact with its social work department. It followed its policy and properly justified its decision. It was also not at fault for how it managed Mrs B’s correspondence during her year-long contact restrictions. It dealt quickly with everything she sent, despite staff absences.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I refer to as Mrs B, complains that her contact with the Council was unfairly restricted for a year. She says the Council targeted her because she had highlighted failings by its leaving care team.
2. Mrs B says her single point of contact – the only person she could contact during the period of restriction – was absent for long periods, which meant she could not contact the Council at all. She says she tried to complain about this, but the Council told her she could not do so.
3. Mrs B says the Council’s failings meant that, for a year, it severely restricted her from raising concerns about the welfare of her adult daughter, and about the support offered to her daughter by the Council’s leaving care team.
4. Mrs B says this caused her distress, because nobody was listening to her serious concerns about her daughter.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

5. 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)
6. 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

7. I considered information from Mrs B and the Council. Both parties had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

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What I found

What should have happened?

8. The Council’s unreasonable behaviour policy applies to people who have, among other things, made an excessive number of contacts with the council and placed unreasonable demands on staff.
9. The policy should only apply in exceptional circumstances. In most cases, before any action is taken the Council will explain to the person why there is cause for concern, and will ask them to change their behaviour. They will be warned that if the behaviour persists, the Council may take action under the policy.
10. When the Council decides action is justified, it has several options. One of these is to stop all contact with the person except through a designated point of contact. The customer services manager, or another suitable senior manager, will authorise all actions.
11. The Council will record the date of a decision to categorise someone as unreasonable, and the date this status will be reviewed and will end. This will normally be a period of no longer than one year, although it will depend on the circumstances of each case.
12. Someone who has been classed as unreasonable under the policy still has the right to make further new complaints or enquiries if they wish. However, these should be sent to the designated point of contact, if one is assigned.

What happened?

13. In May 2019 Mrs B made a complaint to the Council about the support its leaving care team was providing to her adult daughter. The Council told her it could not consider the complaint because it did not have her daughter’s consent.
14. In May and June Mrs B sent two emails, complaining about the Council’s leaving care team, to many recipients from different agencies. She also sent three emails directly to the leaving care team and made a call to its out-of-hours service.
15. The Council wrote to Mrs B in June, saying it had already done all it could to respond to her requests about her daughter. It asked that, as she had been directing further requests to people in (and outside) the Council who had nothing to do with her daughter’s case, she direct all future correspondence to the children’s complaints manager. It said if she did not do this, it may decide her behaviour was unreasonable and take further action.
16. Over the next three months, Mrs B sent four more emails to multiple recipients, copied another two emails to people in the Council (not the children’s complaints manager), and submitted another complaint about the support given to her daughter (which the Council could still not deal with because of a lack of consent).
17. In mid-September, the Council’s customer services manager wrote to Mrs B and said that, as her behaviour had not changed since its warning in June, it had placed her on its unreasonable behaviour register for a year. It said she must direct all correspondence during that period to a single point of contact (SPOC) – the children’s complaints manager. It said her SPOC would only reply if necessary, and any correspondence to anyone else would not be answered.
18. Mrs B continued to email and call other Council officers, councillors and other agencies after this point; however, the Council does not appear to have responded to any of this correspondence, and I do not intend to summarise it.
19. Mrs B’s SPOC was absent for all of November. Mrs B emailed her in early November, and her email was passed to the Head of Service. The Head of Service told Mrs B she would be the interim SPOC until the children’s complaints manager returned.
20. Later in November, when the Head of Service was also absent, Mrs B sent another email about her daughter. The Director of Safeguarding dealt with this email and passed it to the Council’s social work department.
21. Mrs B’s SPOC returned to work in December. Over the following two months
    Mrs B sent her four emails, which were all passed to the social work department.
22. In February 2020 Mrs B emailed the SPOC again, but she was away. The email was passed to the social work department in her absence.
23. In March Mrs B sent another email about her daughter to her SPOC. This email was, again, passed to the social work department.
24. From June to August Mrs B sent three further emails about her daughter to her SPOC, who was absent throughout this period. The Council did not assign anyone to take over as Mrs B’s SPOC until mid-August, when the Head of Service created a rota. However, all Mrs B’s emails were dealt with.
25. In September – a year after the restrictions started – the Council wrote to Mrs B and ended them.

My findings

26. It is not for me to decide whether Mrs B’s behaviour was unreasonable. However, I can consider whether the Council followed its policy, and whether it properly justified and explained restricting Mrs B’s contact.
27. If the Council failed to do any of this properly, I can consider whether any failures were sufficient to undermine the overall decision to put restrictions in place.
28. However, if there are no such failures, I have no power to question the Council’s decision (unless it was obviously unreasonable).

The decision to restrict Mrs B’s contact with the Council

29. The Council warned Mrs B before applying restrictions and told her how her behaviour was unacceptable under its policy. Then, three months later, it explained to her why it was taking further action and gave examples of behaviour it considered unreasonable.
30. The Council’s policy allowed it to take the action it did, its customer services manager made the decision, and it stopped the restrictions after a year. So there was no fault in how it followed its policy.
31. Furthermore:
• there is no evidence the Council was targeting Mrs B because of her history of highlighting social work failures;
• it gave her a chance to change her behaviour;
• it provided evidence to support its decision; and
• it clearly communicated and explained the decision.
32. Because of this, I do not consider the Council’s decision to restrict Mrs B’s contact to have been obviously unreasonable, and I have not found fault with it.

The absence of Mrs B’s single point of contact

33. Mrs B’s SPOC was absent for around five months of the year-long contact restrictions. And the evidence I have seen suggests that arrangements to cover these absences were largely unplanned and were rarely communicated to Mrs B in advance (until mid-August, around a month before the restrictions ended).
34. However, whether Mrs B’s SPOC was in work or not, the Council dealt with
    Mrs B’s correspondence consistently for the whole year. I have seen no evidence that she could not raise concerns about her daughter’s safety (or, indeed, any other concerns) at any point during the restriction period.
35. Because of this, although the Council’s arrangements for dealing with Mrs B’s correspondence could have been clearer, my view is that the threshold for maladministration is not met – although the Council may wish to reflect on this to inform future practice.
36. A further point raised by Mrs B is that she was not allowed to complain about her SPOC’s absence. However, I have seen no evidence she tried to submit a formal complaint about this.
37. As a result, I have found no fault with the Council.

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Final decision

38. The Council was not at fault for deciding Mrs B’s behaviour was unreasonable, or for restricting her contact with its social work department. It was also not at fault for how it managed Mrs B’s correspondence during her year-long contact restrictions.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman