Summary: The Council was at fault for its children’s social work team’s handling of Mr X’s son’s case. It did not involve Mr X in its assessment, failed to discuss or review his son’s support plan for a long period, did not keep proper records, and did not otherwise do what it had promised Mr X. It will now take action to remedy his injustice and improve its service.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I refer to as Mr X, complains about how the Council’s children’s social work team handled his son’s case. I refer to his son as Y.
2. Mr X says:
• The Council failed to look into his concerns about Y’s mother.
• The Council stopped Mr X sending letters to Y through his school, which hindered his ability to communicate with Y.
• Despite accepting some mistakes in its complaint responses to Mr X, the Council failed to remedy the injustice those mistakes caused him.
3. Mr X says he suffered distress. He wants a full apology, procedural change and ‘significant’ compensation.

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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 significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
5. 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)
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)
7. 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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What I have and have not investigated

8. Although a significant part of Mr X’s complaint is about the Council’s consideration of the alleged risk to Y from his mother, the Council set out this consideration – and its recommendations for Y’s contact with Mr X – in a court report in October 2022. This was then considered by the court as part of private law proceedings between Y’s mother and Mr X.
9. As the Council’s consideration of the risk to Y has been presented to and considered by a court, I cannot comment on it.
10. For this reason, I have only investigated how the Council administered Y’s case, rather than considering whether its analysis of risk was fair. I have also limited my investigation to between October 2022 (when the Council completed its court report) and May 2023 (when it closed Y’s case).

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How I considered this complaint

11. I considered:
• Information from Mr X and the Council, including Y’s social care records.
• Relevant statutory guidance and Council procedures.
• The Ombudsman’s guidance on remedies.
12. Mr X and the Council 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

The Council’s responsibilities

Statutory guidance on child safeguarding, ‘Working together to safeguard children 2018’

13. When assessing a child’s needs, a council must ensure its assessment is informed by the views of the child and their family. Where possible, children should be seen alone.
14. It is important that a council identifies the impact of what is happening to a child. It should gather, record and check information from the child, their family and relevant practitioners. If appropriate, it should discuss that information with the child and their parents.
15. It is the responsibility of social workers to make clear to children and families how assessments will be carried out.

The Council’s procedures

16. A child’s parents' involvement in an assessment will be central to its success. They should be involved at the earliest opportunity (unless to do so would put the child at risk). At the outset they need to understand how they can contribute to the assessment. The assessment process must be open and transparent with them.
17. Records should be kept of an assessment’s progress on the child's record. The recording should be such that the child, if requesting to access their records, could easily understand the process and the decision-making.
18. When the Council has decided that a child is in need of support, it must:
• Visit them at least every 20 working days.

• Record each visit on their file.
• Hold a planning meeting at least every six weeks.
• Ensure that the support plan is reviewed at least every three months (unless there are exceptional circumstances).

Statutory guidance, ‘Getting the best from complaints’

19. The law sets out a three-stage procedure for councils to follow when looking at complaints about children’s social care services. This involves an independent investigation (stage 2) and a review by an independent panel (stage 3).
20. Under the statutory procedure, all functions of a council under Part 3 of the Children Act 1989 (sections 16B to 30A) may form the subject of a complaint.
21. This includes section 17, which sets out a council’s duties to provide services to children in need of support and their families. These children are referred to as children ‘in need’. (Children Act 1989, section 17)
22. Councils must consider complaints under the statutory procedure when they are made by any child who is ‘in need’, or the child’s parent.

What happened

23. In October 2022, the Council regarded Y as a child ‘in need’ and had written a support plan. This included:
• Support (from Y’s school) to help Y’s mother get him into school.
• Continued counselling for Y, which he already received from a local charity and which appeared to be benefiting him.
• The inclusion of Mr X in some of those counselling sessions.
• Support (from Y’s school) for Y to talk to Mr X after school if he wanted to.
24. In November, the Council held a planning meeting. It noted that Y’s school attendance had improved. Counselling sessions were going well, although Y did not want Mr X to attend. The only concern noted was about Y’s relationship with Mr X.
25. After the meeting, the Council decided Y no longer needed social work support. It decided to step his case down to ‘early help’ (a coordinated support plan without the need for a social worker). It asked its early help team to provide support with Y’s relationship with Mr X.
26. Mr X was unhappy with this decision. He wrote to the Council, saying his relationship breakdown with Y was caused Y’s mother. He said the Council had recommended 50/50 shared care in its recent court report and he and Y needed support to make that arrangement work.
27. The Council responded to Mr X’s letter in January 2023. In this letter, it agreed to:
• Keep Y’s case open and continue with his support plan.
• “… ensure the Court’s direction in relation to contact between you and your son is upheld and supported by the social worker”.
• Further assess Y’s ‘lived experience’, to try and understand why his views on contact with Mr X had changed.
28. There are no more relevant social work records until April. However, Mr X has provided a copy of an email exchange between Y’s school and his social worker in March.
29. The school told the social worker that it had been allowing Mr X to send letters to Y through school with the Council’s support. However, Y’s counsellor had told the school that the Council no longer supported the arrangement. It asked the social worker for clarification and said it would end the arrangement until told otherwise.
30. I have seen no record of any response to the school by Y’s social worker.
31. In April, the Council completed its assessment. The following aspects were of note:
• Again, the Council recommended that Y’s case step down to early help. It said both of Y’s parents agreed.
• Y’s views were recorded, but it is not clear whether he was spoken to alone.
• The assessment says a home visit was conducted, but does not say when.
• Mr X’s views were recorded, but it is not clear when they were sought.
32. In May, the Council ended its social work involvement with Y’s case.
33. After Mr X complained to the Council, it responded under its corporate complaints procedure. It accepted that it had closed Y’s case after saying it would be kept open, had not done any work to support Y’s contact with Mr X, and had not communicated with Mr X after January 2023 (including not sending him a copy of the assessment). It apologised.

My findings

34. I do not agree with Mr X’s view that the Council failed to look into his concerns. It did intend to step Y’s case down to early help in late 2022; however, after Mr X challenged this decision, the Council considered his reasons and agreed to keep the case open and conduct a further assessment.
35. This appears to be clear evidence that – up to January 2023 at least – the Council was listening to Mr X and responding to his concerns.
36. However, as the Council itself has already partly acknowledged, there appear to have been significant failings in its handling of Y’s case from then on.
37. Firstly, the Council told Mr X in January 2023 that Y’s social worker would support his contact arrangements with Mr X. There is no evidence in the Council’s records of this support being delivered.
38. It does appear – based on evidence Mr X himself has provided – that Y’s social worker had been supporting letter contact between Mr X and Y through Y’s school. The school stopped this in March 2023, and asked the social worker for clarification on the arrangement. I have seen no evidence that any such clarification was provided.
39. Although the Council completed a new assessment which appears to address Y’s views on contact with Mr X, there are no social care records which show how the information was gathered for the assessment. There is no evidence that:
• Y was spoken to alone;
• Y was visited at home during the period of assessment;
• other professionals were spoken to about Y’s needs during the period of assessment; or
• Mr X agreed to the step down to early help, or was involved in the assessment at all.
40. It also appears Mr X was not given a copy the assessment, so he could not comment on it prior to case closure.
41. Although the Council told Mr X in January 2023 that it would continue with Y’s support plan, the last planning meeting took place in November 2022. This meant the Council took no action to discuss or review the plan for six months before it closed Y’s case.
42. Furthermore, as Y was ‘in need’ and Mr X, as Y’s father, was making a complaint about how the Council was discharging its duties under section 17 of the Children Act, the Council should have considered his complaint under the statutory complaints procedure. Had it done so, Mr X may not have felt he needed to complain to the Ombudsman (as he would already have had access to an independent investigation).
43. Consequently, the Council was at fault for its handling of Y’s case. And it is unsurprising, given the Council’s mistakes – and the complete lack of records demonstrating any action on the case between January and April 2023 – that
    Mr X felt the Council was not taking his concerns seriously.
44. The Council says that, as there have been no referrals about Y for over a year, no more work is now needed on Y’s case to ensure his family can meet his needs.
45. However, the Council should take steps to remedy Mr X’s injustice and to improve its service.

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Agreed actions

46. Within a month, the Council will:
• Send Mr X a new, detailed written apology which addresses all the areas for which it was at fault.
• Make a symbolic payment to Mr X of £250 to recognise the avoidable distress it has likely caused him.
47. Within two months, the Council will send the Ombudsman an action plan which sets out the ways it will ensure that the mistakes it made on Y’s case do not happen to others in future.
48. The Council will provide us with evidence it has done these things.

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Final decision

49. The Council was at fault for its children’s social work team’s handling of Y’s case.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman