Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s actions when Miss X looked after her grandchild. Investigation by us would be unlikely to add to the Council’s investigation, and part of the complaint is not separable from issues of contact with the child, which is a matter for a court that we are legally prevented from investigating.

The complaint

Miss X said the Council failed her infant grandchild. She said it wrongly used s.20 of the Children Act 1989 and then removed the child from her care. She said the Council had failed to do what it had promised, and had taken too long to deal with her complaint.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

1. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
2. We have the power to start or end an investigation into a complaint about actions the law allows us to investigate. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we think the issues could reasonably be, or have been mentioned as part of the legal proceedings regarding a closely related matter. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 24A(6) and 34B(8), as amended, section 34(B))
3. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide:

• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants, or
• there is another body better placed to consider this complaint, or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

4. 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

5. I considered information provided by the complainant.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. The complaint correspondence I have seen shows the Council accepted it had acted with fault at the time in 2022 when Miss X’s grandchild lived with her due to concerns about the parental care of the child. The Council accepted it had not made its intentions clear to Miss X when she was looking after the child. It also accepted it had wrongly described the arrangement as a private family matter when it was playing a role in placing the child. It accepted that some social worker visits were missed, and that it was wrong to have insisted that the infant was brought to a meeting when there was a risk to the child from the father present. It also accepted it should not have left Miss X to navigate contact arrangements with her daughter and the child’s father unassisted.
8. The correspondence also shows Miss wanted the Council to apologise for what went wrong, assurances of no repetition, to write an action plan, and to act against the social workers. It is also clear that Miss X wanted contact with her grandchild.
9. We cannot make any recommendation about contact. That is a matter for a court. We also have no power to recommend disciplinary action in a personnel matter, which Miss X could complain of to Social Work England.
10. I note the Council has apologised for its poor handling of matters in September and October 2022. It has also offered Miss X the correct fees that would have been payable to her had it correctly treated her as a family and friends care for her grandchild at that time. I note it has also offered Miss X £500 for the time trouble she had in complaining given there was considerable delay by the Council in dealing with her complaint. And I have seen a copy of an action plan following completion of the complaint process.
11. Were we to investigate, and bearing in mind our inability to consider professional conduct matters, or matters related to contact with the child, we would be unlikely to achieve a greater remedy than that already offered by the Council.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because:

• Matters related to contact with a child are matters only a court can decide, and we have no legal authority to consider them;
• Matters of professional conduct are matters it would be reasonable to take to Social Work England; and
• Investigation by us of the remaining matters would be unlikely to lead to a better or more worthwhile outcome than that resulting from the Council’s own investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman