The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: Miss X complains of the Council’s actions following a visit from a social worker which led to a child protection investigation. The Council has accepted fault in relation to a number of Miss X’s complaints. Miss X feels the remedy it has offered is inadequate. The Council has agreed an enhanced financial remedy.
The complaint
The Council has upheld multiple complaints from the complainant, who I refer to here as Miss X, including several examples of poor social work practice, delays in closing the case and poor complaint handling. The final stage of the complaints process found Miss X was subject to disproportionate intervention and suffered unnecessary distress.
The Council offered £1,300 as a remedy, which Miss X said was inadequate. She also complained that a review of the child protection investigation, which an investigator had recommended earlier in the complaints process, was not carried out.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
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 an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended) 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)
How I considered this complaint
I spoke to Miss X and considered information provided by Miss X and the Council. I shared my draft decision with both parties and considered their comments before finalising my decision.
What I found
Child protection investigations If a Council has reason to believe a child is at risk of, or has suffered, significant harm it should carry out a child protection investigation known as a Section 47 enquiry. If the investigation confirms that a child has suffered or is likely to suffer significant harm, the council should hold a child protection conference. This is a multi-agency meeting chaired by an independent person. The conference may conclude that the child needs to be placed on a child protection plan to protect them from harm.
What happened Miss X made 28 complaints about the Council, all of which were upheld or partially upheld at the third and final stage of a statutory complaints process for investigating complaints about children’s services. The final Stage 3 report was critical of the Council’s complaints handling as well as of its children’s services department. The Council accepted the Stage 3 report’s findings. It apologised and offered Miss X £300 in recognition of her time and trouble in bringing the complaint and a further £1,000 for delays in bringing the complaint to a conclusion.
Miss X complained to us that this remedy was inadequate. She said the Council had offered £1,300 in February 2021 and then offered a further £300 by letter in May 2021. The Council had then reverted to an offer of £1,300 in its final letter of July 2021 without explanation.
She complained the Council had also failed to offer a remedy for the faults detailed in the Stage 3 report. She told me the Council’s assessment and investigation process had caused her immense stress, as she had been left believing for an extended period that she may lose her son. At the same time, her own grandmother was ill and passed away, her final months having been overshadowed by the process. Miss X also pointed out that she had paid £1,600 for a private doctor to attend a meeting when the case should have been closed and had to re-mortgage her house to fund other costs associated with the case.
Miss X also complained that a report at Stage 2 of the complaints process had recommended a review of the management of the Section 47 process. The Council had decided not to do this on the basis that changes had been made to its processes. Miss X complained that she was seeking a personal remedy and wished to know in more detail what had happened in her case. She said her desired outcome was not met by a procedural change affecting future cases and asked that the recommended review be carried out.
In response to my enquiries the Council said the May 2021 offer of the further £300 remained. It said this offer was in recognition of a mistake in sending out an incorrect draft of the Stage 2 complaint investigation report. The Council apologised that this was not referred to in the final offer letter.
The Council said it had consulted the Ombudsman’s guidance on remedies before making the offer of £1,300. The guidance states: “A remedy payment for distress is often a moderate sum of between £100 and £300. In cases where the distress was severe or prolonged, up to £1,000 may be justified...The remedy payment for time and trouble is unlikely to be less than £100 or more than £300”.
The Council nevertheless agreed a further remedy for the injustice caused by its faults of £1,500 and agreed to refund the private doctor’s fees of £1,600 subject to production of a receipt.
In response to my draft decision Miss X said this offer was still inadequate to remedy her family’s suffering. In my view the remedy is appropriate. However the payment is a symbolic acknowledgement of the distress Miss X has been through and the amount is in line with our guidance. The guidance states that we do not award compensation in the way a court might do. In my view it is appropriate.
With regards to the Section 47 process review, the Council said its head of service had met Miss X in January 2021 to discuss this and had outlined contributing factors that lead to the injustice caused. These factors included staffing issues, changes in social worker with poor management of handovers and the fact that an over-reliance on self-reporting by individuals meant delays in the process were not clearly visible to team managers.
The Council said it had made improvements in these areas as follows: Recruitment strategies to enhance the stability of the workforce with a view to reducing the number of social workers allocated to children;; Stronger social work induction programmes; A performance dashboard to allow managers to performance manage the timeliness of Section 47 enquires; Monthly performance meetings that allow high level scrutiny of data and at which managers are held to account; Bespoke webinars, workshops and training specific to social workers around key elements of their practice including the timeliness and quality of assessments and Section 47 enquires; and A revised audit process to enhance oversight of quality of practice.
The Council told me it had attempted to contact staff previously employed by the council to afford them the opportunity to make comment on the complaint following the Stage 3 review panel, but it had been unsuccessful.
In response to my draft decision Miss X told me that she would still like a more in-depth explanation of what happened during the Section 47 process and why the case drifted as it did. However, in my view a review would not add much to what is already known. The Council has identified faults that led to the injustice suffered by Miss X and has put in place measures to ensure this does not happen again. I have recommended Miss X use the Subject Access Process to obtain the fine detail of what went on.
Agreed action
The Council has agreed that within one month of my final decision it will pay Miss X: £1,300 as offered in the letter of February 2021 (£1,000 for distress and £300 for time and trouble); £300 as offered in the letter of May 2021 (for sending the wrong Stage 2 report); £1,500 to further remedy the impact of injustice caused by the faults outlined in the Stage 3 report; and £1,600 for private doctors’ fees subject to the production of a receipt.
The total agreed remedy is £4,700.
Final decision
I have closed my case with a finding of fault by the Council, which the Council partially remedied prior to the Ombudsman’s intervention. The Council has agreed an enhanced financial remedy.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman