Summary: The Council failed to investigate Mr X’s complaint regarding racial bias at stage 1 of the children’s statutory complaints procedure. It also significantly delayed in progressing his complaint. The Council has agreed to apologise to Mr X and pay him £150 in recognition of the avoidable frustration caused. The Council went on to investigate Mr X’s complaint regarding racial bias thoroughly at stages 2 and 3 of the complaint procedure. Therefore, we have not re-investigated that matter here. There is no evidence to support Mr X’s claim that his complaint regarding a flawed child in need assessment was not properly investigated.

The complaint

1. Mr X said the Council failed to properly carry out a child in need (section 17) assessment when it should have and that the Council racially discriminated against him.
2. He complained the Council failed to investigate these complaints properly when he raised them through the statutory complaints procedure.
3. Mr X said the Council’s actions have negatively affected his relationship with his children and caused him distress.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. 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)
5. 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 a council has investigated something under the statutory children’s complaint process, the Ombudsman would not normally re-investigate it unless we consider the investigation was flawed. However, we may look at whether a council properly considered the findings and recommendations of the independent investigation.
7. If we are satisfied with an organisation’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)
8. Under our information sharing agreement, we will share this decision with the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted).

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How I considered this complaint

9. I considered the information provided by Mr X and the Council.
10. I considered the relevant law and statutory guidance as set out below.
11. I considered our Guidance on Remedies.
12. I considered all comments made by Mr X and the Council on a draft decision before making a final decision.

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What I found

Law and guidance

The Children’s statutory complaints procedure

13. There is a formal procedure, set out in law, which councils must follow to investigate certain complaints about children’s services. The procedure aims to ensure concerns are resolved swiftly and, wherever possible, by the people who provide the service locally. This formal procedure applied to Mr X’s complaint.
14. The children’s statutory complaints procedure involves three stages:
• Stage 1 - Local resolution by the council.
• Stage 2 – an investigation by an investigating officer not involved in the service who will prepare a detailed report and findings. The investigation is overseen by an independent person to ensure its impartiality. The council then issues an adjudication letter which sets out its response to the findings.
• Stage 3 – an independent panel to consider their outstanding issues.
15. The 2006 statutory guidance, ‘Getting the Best From Complaints’ sets out the procedure in more detail including timeframes.

Section 17

16. Section 17 of the Children Act 1989 says councils must safeguard and promote the welfare of children within their area who are in need.
17. A child is in need if:
• they are unlikely to achieve or maintain a reasonable standard of health or development unless the council provides support;
• their health or development is likely to be significantly impaired unless the council provides support; or
• they are disabled.

Equality Act

18. The Equality Act 2010 makes it unlawful for organisations carrying out public functions to discriminate on any of the nine protected characteristics listed in the Equality Act 2010. One of the protected characteristics referred to in the Act is race.
19. The Ombudsman cannot decide if an organisation has breached the Equality Act, as this can only be done by the courts. But we can make decisions about whether an organisation has properly taken account of an individual’s rights in its treatment of them.

What happened

20. In this investigation, I have not set out or investigated all of the issues Mr X complained about in this complaints process. I have only included the complaints which Mr X said had not been properly investigated through this complaints procedure, for the reasons set out in paragraph 6 of this decision statement.

Stage 1

21. Mr X raised a stage 1 complaint to the Council on 13 January 2022.
22. As part of his complaint, Mr X said the Council did not properly review his concerns regarding his children. He also said the Council racially discriminated against him.
23. On 27 January 2022, the Council told Mr X it would consider his complaint under the statutory complaints procedure.
24. On 11 February 2022 the Council responded at stage 1 of this procedure.
25. The Council’s stage 1 response addressed Mr X’s complaint. The Council accepted fault for the following:
• in 2018, the Council recorded a concern Mr X had raised however, it did not pass his concern on to the worker who was supporting his family, when it should have done; and
• the Council did not share with Mr X some safeguarding information regarding his children when it should have done.
26. It also accepted partial fault regarding a welfare call Mr X made on behalf of his children. It said the Council followed procedures to check on the children and the correct processes were followed. However it acknowledged there was a further final call between Mr X and the social worker before the matter was closed, which the social worker failed to record on the system.
27. It accepted it should have recorded this call, but said the final call would not have changed the outcome of its assessment, which was that the children were safe and well.
28. The Council apologised for these failings at stage 1 and said it would take the following action to prevent their recurrence:
• Hold team meetings to reiterate the importance of recording emails and phone calls on the system;
• The relevant social worker will meet with Mr X to share information of the safeguarding incidents in relation to his children that he did not receive notice of and provide him with details of the actions taken by the Council; and
• It will reiterate to its staff the importance of including both parents in decision making, and for this to be included in the Council’s managerial development plan.
29. However regarding Mr X’s complaint that the Council was racially biased against him, the Council did not address this at all in its stage 1 response.

Stage 2

30. Mr X requested to go to stage 2 of the complaints process in the same month, as he said the Council had not investigated his complaint about racial bias and did not sufficiently explain why a section 17 (child in need) assessment was not carried out properly in response to the concerns he raised.
31. The Council said there were several complaint processes occurring at the time Mr X first requested to move to stage 2 and it was unclear which complaints process should cover which issues. Therefore, it did not agree to escalate Mr X’s complaint to stage 2 of the statutory complaints procedure until mid-April 2022.
32. The Council then did not respond fully at stage 2 of the complaints process until 23 September 2022.
33. The stage 2 investigation, unlike the stage 1, investigated whether there had been racial bias in the Council’s dealings with Mr X.
34. The investigating officer interviewed two social workers Mr X had dealings with but not a third social worker, as they could no longer be contacted due to them no longer working for the Council.
35. The first social worker said they were not aware of Mr X’s race as there were no indicators from his name or accent and only became aware of his race when Mr X informed him. This same social worker then also encouraged Mr X to seek advocacy from the ‘Racial, Equality and Diversity Team’ following his complaint and arranged for them to attend a meeting with him.
36. The other social worker when interviewed, said he always treated people the way he wanted to be treated and had in his career always worked with people from ‘all walks of life and ethnic backgrounds’ and had never been accused of discrimination.
37. The investigating officer found no evidence Mr X had been discriminated against based on race and did not uphold this part of his complaint. However they did find that his right as a parent to know information about his children was not respected fully and there was evidence of some bias towards the children’s mother.
38. Regarding the section 17 assessment that Mr X said was not carried out as it should have been, the Council upheld this complaint again but went into more detail at stage 2 than at stage 1.
39. It found the third social worker - who carried out the section 17 assessment but could not be contacted for interview - used a ‘cut and paste’ approach to their assessment without sufficiently consulting Mr X on his views. It said the assessment contained gaps and, ‘did not reflect positively on (Mr X)’. It said it should not have been signed off by the more senior social worker in the Council.
40. The investigating officer put forward further recommendations, in addition to those agreed at stage 1 including:
• Staff to be reminded that when intervening with children, all parents with parental responsibility should be responded to equally; and
• Team managers to be reminded not to sign off assessments when there are gaps that can be filled and only to sign off assessments, when they are satisfied the social worker has followed the appropriate process.

Stage 3

41. The Council agreed to carry out the recommendations from stage 2. However Mr X said he disagreed that the Council had not been racist in its behaviour towards him and requested to move to stage 3 of the complaints process, whereby an independent panel reviews the complaint and the investigation carried out to date.
42. More than two months after Mr X’s request, the independent review panel issued its findings at stage 3. The panel agreed with the findings at stage 2.
43. The panel said it did not uphold Mr X’s claim that he was subjected to racial bias but again, upheld that he was treated differently at times than the children’s mother.
44. Regarding the flawed section 17 assessment, it agreed with the stage 1 and 2 investigations’ findings that the complaint was upheld.
45. Mr X remained unhappy with this outcome on the matters of the flawed section 17 assessment and the allegation of racial bias and brought his complaint to the Ombudsman.

My findings

Consideration of Mr X’s complaints

46. Mr X complained the Council did not investigate some of his complaints properly through the statutory complaints procedure.
47. Regarding Mr X’s allegation of racial bias, at stage 1 of the complaints process, the Council failed to address this complaint. The Council was at fault. This fault caused frustration to Mr X and put him to time and trouble in escalating his complaint.
48. However the Council did a thorough investigation of this issue at stage 2, including reviewing the case files and interviewing the social workers involved and found no evidence of racial bias. The stage 3 panel then agreed with the findings at stage 2. Further investigation by the Ombudsman will not achieve anything more meaningful for Mr X than this.
49. Regarding Mr X’s complaint that the Council failed to investigate his concerns regarding the section 17 assessment not being carried out properly, the Council was not at fault.
50. It carried out a thorough investigation including interviewing social workers, reviewing the case files and interviewing the senior manager who signed off the assessment. It accepted fault and upheld Mr X’s complaint. The Council’s recommendations were what we would expect to see in response to the faults identified. Further investigation by the Ombudsman will not achieve anything more meaningful for Mr X than this.

Delay in investigation

51. In complex cases, the maximum time the Council should take to carry out its stage 2 investigation is thirteen weeks. In this case the Council took 31 weeks to investigate the complaint at stage 2. This was significant delay and the Council was at fault.
52. The evidence shows there was confusion during this period about what complaints process the Council should be using. However the guidance says that from the date Mr X requested to move to stage 2, the Council should have agreed to this and begun the stage 2 investigation. Failure to do so caused Mr X avoidable frustration.
53. The Council then had 30 days from the date Mr X requested an independent review panel at stage 3, to convene its panel. It then had a further 5 days for the panel to issue its findings. The panel issued its findings 65 days after Mr X requested to go to stage 3. This was delay and the Council was at fault. This fault caused further frustration to Mr X.

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Agreed action

54. Within one month of the date of the final decision, the Council has agreed to:
1. apologise to Mr X for its delays in dealing with his complaint and for failing to address his complaint at stage 1 of the statutory complaints procedure; and
2. pay Mr X £150 in recognition of the avoidable frustration he was caused due to the delays at stage 2 and stage 3 of the complaints process.
55. Within three months of the date of the final decision, the Council has agreed to:
1. remind relevant staff that the timeframe for progressing to the next stage of the statutory complaints procedure begins once a person has made that request and all efforts should be made to respond within the statutory timeframe.
56. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Final decision

57. I have completed my investigation. I have found fault leading to injustice and recommended an apology, a financial remedy and a service improvement.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman