Summary: Before our involvement, the Council accepted that it was at fault for several ways in which it failed to properly support Mr B and his family during a child protection investigation. It had already offered him and his family symbolic financial remedies; however, not all these payments adequately recognised their injustice. It has agreed to increase some of the payments, and it will take steps to improve its service.

The complaint

1. The complainant (whom I refer to as Mr B) and his wife are special guardians of two children.
2. Mr B complains about the way the Council treated him and his family during a child protection investigation. He also complains that the Council delayed responding to his complaint.
3. Mr B says the Council caused him and his family great 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 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 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 council. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
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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How I considered this complaint

8. I considered:
• Information from Mr B and the Council.
• Statutory complaint-handling procedure.
• The Ombudsman’s guidance on remedies.
• Previous Ombudsman decisions.
9. Mr B and the Council now have an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I will consider their comments before making a final decision.

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What I found

The Ombudsman’s guidance on remedies

10. We do not punish councils in the way a court might. This means we do not award ‘damages’ or ‘compensation’.
11. Instead, we can ask a council to make a payment to ‘symbolise and acknowledge’ the distress someone suffered because of what it did wrong.   
12. If we decide it is appropriate, we normally recommend a remedy payment for distress of up to £500. But we can recommend higher payments if we decide the distress was especially severe or prolonged.

Previous Ombudsman decisions

13. In October 2022, we found fault with the Council’s handling of a different children’s social care complaint (case reference 22 000 253).
14. We found that the Council took seven years to deal with the complaint, and failed to implement recommendations which arose from it.
15. The Council offered the complainant a symbolic payment for her distress. We also asked it to improve how it implemented recommendations arising from complaints.
16. In May 2023, we issued a public report into a complaint against Cumberland Council (case reference 22 012 051).
17. We found systemic delays to the council’s handling of children’s social care complaints. We recommended that it make symbolic payments to people affected, at the rate of £25 per month of delay.

Statutory timescales for responding to children’s social care complaints

18. The statutory guidance, ‘Getting the best from complaints’, sets out a three-stage procedure for complaints about certain aspects of children’s social care. It provides the following timescales for the handling of these complaints:
• 10 working days for the council to respond at stage 1 (with an extra 10 working days if the complaint is complex).
• 25 working days for an independent investigation at stage 2 (with a maximum extension up to 65 working days).
• 30 working days for the council to convene and hold a review panel hearing at stage 3.
• Five working days for the review panel to issue its findings.
• 15 working days for the council to respond to the panel’s findings.

What happened

The Council’s investigation into Mr B’s complaint

19. Mr B first complained to the Council in 2020. The Council responded under the three-stage Children Act complaints procedure. The second stage involved an independent investigation.
20. The Council took almost three years to fully deal with Mr B’s complaint. However, in the end it accepted everything Mr B had complained about. It said:
• Its record-keeping was poor, which means it could not provide evidence that it properly supported Mr B and his wife during the child protection investigation. It also could not demonstrate what it said to them in meetings. This meant its communication with them was below an acceptable standard and, consequently, they did not properly understand the investigation process. This caused them distress.
• While Mr B was temporarily staying away from the family home, it failed to support his wife properly, and failed to consider how her disability might impact on her ability to look after the children in her care.
• It failed to support the children properly during the child protection investigation. This included a delay in arranging contact between Mr B and one of the children.
• More generally, it failed to act in accordance with child protection procedures, particularly over the course of the children’s child protection plan.

The Council’s offers to Mr B

21. The Council offered:
• An apology.
• To place the independent investigator’s findings on its social care system.
• To send Mr B copies of assessments, plans and meeting records which it had not sent him before.
• Symbolic £500 payments to both Mr B and his wife to recognise any distress arising from its failure to support them properly.
• Payments of £50 to each child to recognise their injustice from its failure to support them.
• A payment of £300 to recognise the distress suffered by Mr B and his wife from delays to its complaint investigation.
22. The Council also agreed to conduct a full review of its complaint-handling procedures.

Mr B’s complaint to the Ombudsman

23. Mr B was dissatisfied with the outcome of his complaint to the Council. He said the proposed financial remedies were an ‘insult’, particularly those for the children.

My findings

24. If a complaint has already been through the second stage of the Children Act complaints procedure, this means the complainant has already had access to an independent investigation.
     
25. Consequently, we will not normally re-investigate such a complaint unless we have reason to believe the previous investigation was flawed.
26. I have considered the documents from Mr B’s complaint, and I note that:
• Each part of the complaint was considered and addressed by the Council.
• The independent investigation report refers to relevant procedure, staff interviews and case records. This evidence supports the investigator’s findings.
• All parts of the complaint were upheld.
27. Because of this, it is unlikely I would be able to add anything significant to what the Council has already said. If I were to reinvestigate the complaint, it is also unlikely that this would lead to a substantially different outcome for Mr B. So a reinvestigation would be of no benefit to him.
28. I have, however, considered whether the Council’s proposed remedies properly recognise the injustice it has caused.
29. The Council’s proposed financial remedy – which is the focus of Mr B’s complaint to us – is separated into three parts.
30. The first part involves two symbolic payments to Mr B and his wife to recognise their general distress. These payments are in line with our guidance, so I will not recommend that the Council increase them.
31. The second part involves two payments to the children in Mr B’s care, again for their general distress. Given the failings that the Council has accepted, these very small payments do not adequately recognise the children’s injustice in the way we expect. The Council should increase the payments so, for the sake of symbolism, they match the payments to Mr B and his wife.
32. The final part involves a payment to Mr B and his wife to recognise their distress from delays to the Council’s complaint responses. With our guidance – particularly on ‘prolonged’ distress – and our Cumberland report in mind, this payment is also inadequate for a two-year delay, and the Council should increase it.
33. Although we have found fault with the Council for its complaint-handling in the past, our recommendations primarily focused on how it implemented recommendations arising from complaints. Whereas the primary problem in
    Mr B’s case was severe delays.
34. The Council has promised to review its complaint-handling procedures. It should send us the outcome of that review, including an action plan for reducing delays in the future.
35. Furthermore, there is no evidence that the Council has taken action, or will take action, to ensure the substantive problems in Mr B’s complaint – with the child protection investigation and with case recording – have been fixed. It should tell us how it has done this (or how it intends to do it).

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Agreed actions

36. Within a month, the Council has agreed to:
• Make the pre-agreed symbolic £500 payments to Mr B and his wife to recognise its failure to support them during its child protection investigation.
   
• Make £500 payments to each of the children in Mr B’s care – a total of £1,000 – to recognise its failure to support them during the same period.
• Make a further £600 payment to Mr B to recognise the significant delays to its complaint investigation.
37. Within two months, the Council has agreed to:
• Send us the outcome of its review into its complaint-handling procedures, including an action plan for reducing delays in the future.
• Send us a separate action plan setting out how it has fixed, or will fix, the substantive problems in Mr B’s complaint (with the child protection investigation and with case recording).
38. The Council will provide us with evidence it has done these things.

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Final decision

39. The Council was at fault, and that this caused Mr B and his family an injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman