The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We uphold this complaint about how the Council’s children’s services dealt with the complainant, after his son was placed on a child protection plan. Whilst the Council did uphold Mr X’s complaint it did not provide a remedy for the injustice it caused him. The Council has now agreed to apologise to the complainant and to offer him a payment to remedy the distress it caused him and to reflect the time and trouble he went to raising his complaint.
The complaint
The complainant, who I will call Mr X, complains about the actions of the Council’s children’s services, after his son was placed on a child protection plan. Mr X says the Council’s should acknowledge the impact its actions have had on him.
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) Under our information sharing agreement, we will share the final decision with the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted).
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
The complainant commented on my draft decision. I considered their comments before making a final decision.
My assessment
The Council upheld Mr X’s complaint accepting that there was fault in how it communicated with him, that it delayed acting upon concerns about a new relationship which Mr X says was affecting his son, delayed providing Mr X with information and that there were mistakes in dealing with his complaint about these matters. The Council agreed to implement service improvements to avoid the same issues happening again.
Further investigation is likely to agree with the Council’s conclusion that there was fault in how it had dealt with the matters raised by Mr X. Further investigation would also likely agree that the service improvements agreed by the Council were appropriate and proportionate.
However, if we investigated this complaint, it is likely we would find further fault because the Council did not properly remedy the injustice to Mr X. The Council did not apologise to Mr X for the impact its fault had on him and did not propose a suitable personal remedy to reflect the injustice it cause him. We therefore asked the Council to consider remedying this injustice by apologising to Mr X and making a token payment to him.
Agreed action
To its credit the Council agreed to resolve the complaint and will do so within a month of the date of my final decision. The Council has agreed to write to Mr X to apologise for the fault it identified and the impact this caused him. It has also agreed to offer to make a payment to Mr X of £300 to remedy the distress this fault caused him and to reflect the time and trouble he went to pursuing his complaint.
Final decision
We uphold this complaint. This is because there is evidence of fault causing him an injustice.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman