The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about child protection action taken by the Council. There is not enough evidence of fault to warrant investigation.
The complaint
Mr X said the Council acted with bias in not allowing him unsupervised contact with his children after his son was said to have disclosed that he was chastised by Mr X with a gym belt. He said the Council failed to find any evidence of harm or risk of harm
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
The Ombudsman investigates complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start or may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
The second stage investigation report into Mr X’s complaint states his son disclosed Mr X hit him on the arm with a gym belt, and a sibling on the hand. It states the child disclosed this at school, and again to a police officer. It sates the child said this was not the only occasion.
It is unlikely that we would find there was no disclosure as it was stated to have happened twice to different persons in the course of their work. Each would be under a duty to report what was disclosed. And the Council would have been under a duty to consider whether a child had suffered significant harm or was at risk of it. During the time it took to reach a clear view of any measures needed to safeguard children, its duty would have been to take steps to remove the risk of harm. While this might seem severe, requiring a person or persons not to have unsupervised contact with the child or children during that time is standard practice. That a council later decides it is safe to allow unsupervised contact to resume does not mean the earlier decision to prevent it was fault.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council to warrant it.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman