Summary: We have upheld Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s refusal to confirm its involvement with his child. The Council has now agreed to apologise to Mr X and write to him about its involvement with his child. This provides a proportionate remedy for the injustice caused and therefore investigation by us would not be proportionate.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains about the Council’s refusal to confirm its involvement with his child, for whom which he has parental responsibility. Mr X says the Council’s actions undermine his parental responsibility.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we are satisfied with the actions an organisation has taken or proposes to take. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(7), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by Mr X and the Council.
4. I also considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code and the Council’s policies.

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My assessment

5. Mr X has parental responsibility of his child. He became aware the Council became involved with his child after the child’s mother made allegations against him. He asked the Council to confirm its involvement with his child however he says that Council staff refused to engage with him.
6. Mr X then complained to the Council about its refusal to confirm its involvement with his child. The Council told him it could not consider his concerns under its complaint procedure because the matter was before the court.
7. The Council’s internal policies state that when responding to allegations, the Council must work separately with each parent while maintaining the focus on the welfare of the child.
8. While we recognise there may be good reasons the Council decided to withhold some information from Mr X, we do not consider the court proceedings or allegations prevented the Council from confirming its involvement with Mr X’s child. As a person with parental responsibility, he is entitled to appropriate information about his child, subject to safeguarding considerations.
9. If we were to investigate this complaint it is likely we would find fault causing Mr X injustice because the Council failed to work separately with him in response to the allegations, as required by its policies.
10. We therefore asked the Council to consider resolving this complaint early.

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Agreed action

11. To its credit, the Council has agreed to resolve the complaint, and to put things right, it has agreed to:

• write to Mr X to give him information about the outcome of any safeguarding reports he made about his child while in their mother’s care, and whether it is involved with his child and how; and
• make a written apology to Mr X for the injustice caused by not providing this information to him sooner. We publish guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The organisation should consider this guidance in making the apology to Mr X.

12. The Council should complete the agreed action within one month of this decision statement.

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Final decision

13. We have upheld this complaint because the Council has agreed to resolve the complaint early by providing a proportionate remedy for the injustice caused to Mr X.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman