Summary: Miss X complains the Council deliberately delayed arranging contact with her children. We find fault with the Council for delay in arranging extra contact days. We have agreed a symbolic payment for the frustration and distress caused to Miss X as a result.

The complaint

1. Miss X complains the Council delayed arranging extra contact with her children after a court hearing and delayed her having unsupervised contact with her eldest child.
2. Miss X said the contact arrangements with her children placed her at risk of abuse from her ex-partner.
3. Miss X says she has had the same problems with the Council before, causing distress and frustration and meaning she missed time with her children.

Back to top

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. Under our information sharing agreement, we will share this decision with the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted).
6. 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)

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

7. I spoke with Miss X and considered the information she provided.
8. I made enquiries with the Council and considered the information it provided.
9. I considered relevant law and guidance, as set out below and our guidance on remedies, published on our website.
10. Miss X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

Back to top

What I found

Law and guidance

Contact

11. The law says councils must allow the child or children who are the subject of the care order reasonable contact with their parents. If a parent is unhappy with the level of contact the council allows, they can try to resolve the situation by talking to the child or children’s social worker. If they cannot resolve the situation in this way, then they can apply to the court for an order for contact with a child in care.

What happened

12. Miss X has children with Mr Y. The Council became involved with the children due to concerns about the children’s wellbeing. The children were placed in foster care, and then one with Mrs X and two with Mr Y.
13. Miss X asked for unsupervised contact with her eldest child in a review meeting at the end of July 2023. The social work team manager said she would look into this and discuss with the children’s guardian and Mr Y.
14. In response to our enquiries the Council said there was no delay in organising unsupervised visits between Miss X and her eldest child. They were having unsupervised contact before September 2023 so supervised contact ended from the end of September as the service no longer needed to be involved.
15. Mrs X refutes this saying she had no unsupervised contact until the Council agreed to it.
16. The Council are aware that Miss X experienced domestic abuse from Mr Y.
17. After a court hearing in early January 2024, the court decided Miss X should have added supervised contact with her children.
18. The contact service offered time and venues for contact to the social work team in early February.
19. The added contact started in late February 2024. The contact centre was near Mr Y’s home address. During my enquiries I asked the Council what steps it took to protect Miss X from the potential threat from Mr Y. It explained the children were first living with foster carers who would bring them to the contact centre and Miss X and Mr Y would see them on different days. When the children went to live with Mr Y the contact centre offered staggered arrival times, and offered to escort Miss X from her car to the centre if wanted. A supervisor was always present during contact and handover.
20. Miss X made a complaint to the Council in early February 2024 about the delay, asking who was responsible for overseeing the contact centres diary and for details of her social worker’s manager.
21. Miss X made a stage two complaint in March 2024 saying she believed the Council had deliberately hindered contact with her children. She said it failed to consider the location for handover, and intentionally delayed organised unsupervised contact for her and her eldest child.
22. The Council responded just over a week later. The response said:
• It apologised to Miss X for the delay in setting up the contact with her children and assuring her the delay was not deliberate.
• The service only has two contact centres and it is not always possible to agree with requests about location.
• It considered Miss X’s safety concerns about Mr Y.
• The contact between Miss X and her eldest child was unsupervised so the service was not involved in this arrangement.
23. Miss X was unhappy with the response from the Council so she brought her complaint to the Ombudsman.
24. The Council acknowledge the delay in setting up the contact after the court date for six weeks. This was due to a combination of workload issues and difficulties finding a suitable day at the contact centre.
25. The Council said it worked out the extra day of contact as every four weeks rather than monthly so Miss X was given an extra day to compensate for the delay.

Analysis

26. The Council acknowledge the delay in setting up contact after the January court date and apologised to Miss X in the stage two complaint response. This is fault causing avoidable frustration and distress to Miss X.
27. This fault was caused by workload issues and I see no evidence of it being deliberate as Miss X suggests.
28. The Council did consider the safety of Miss X when setting up contact with Mr Y present. I do not find fault with the Council on this part of the complaint.
29. There is no evidence of fault around unsupervised contact with Miss X’s eldest child.

Back to top

Agreed action

30. Within one month of the final decision the Council will:
• Send a written apology to Miss X for the distress and frustration caused for the faults identified above. We publish guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The Council should consider this guidance in making the apology I have recommended in my findings.
• Pay Miss X £150 for the distress and frustration caused by the delay in setting up contact with her children.
31. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

Back to top

Final decision

32. I find fault with the Council for delay in setting up contact with Mrs X’s children. We agreed a symbolic payment for the distress and frustration caused.

Investigator’s final decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman