The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s Child Protection assessment. This is because there is not enough evidence of injustice to warrant an investigation and we could not achieve the outcomes Mr X seeks .
The complaint
Mr X complained that he was not formally informed about allegations about him, or interviewed by a social worker, until nearly a month after his son accused him of abuse. He complained the interview was not carried out in person. He says the social worker produced a damning report and the case was then closed. He says the local authority designated officer (LADO) was not notified, despite his wife working with vulnerable children and adults.
Mr X complained to us that the Council took ten months to respond to his complaint, despite him chasing.
Mr X feels that he has been labelled a child abuser for the rest of his life. He wants the case to be re-opened and investigated properly, including a face-to-face meeting and disclosure of the detail of the allegations.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
We investigate 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 continue an investigation if we decide: any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained; or any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement; or further investigation would not lead to a different outcome; or we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants; or there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Under section 47 of the Children Act 1989, where a council has reasonable cause to suspect that a child in their area is suffering or is likely to suffer significant harm, it has a duty to make such enquiries as it considers necessary to decide whether to take any action to safeguard or promote the child’s welfare. Such enquiries should be initiated where there are concerns about abuse or neglect.
The council should make initial enquiries of agencies involved with the child and family, for example, health visitor, GP, schools and nurseries. The information gathering at this stage enables the Council to assess the nature and level of any harm the child may be facing. The initial assessment may result in: no further action; a decision to carry out a more detailed assessment of the child’s needs; or a decision to convene a strategy meeting.
While I understand the Council’s involvement was distressing to Mr X, we will not start an investigation into his complaint. We will normally only investigate a complaint where the complainant has suffered serious loss, harm or distress as a direct result of fault by an organisation. In Mr X’s case, the Council had a duty to carry out an initial assessment to check that his child was safe. There is no requirement, within the enquiries process, that an interview with a social worker must be carried out in person. The initial enquiries resulted in a decision to take no further action, and there is therefore not enough evidence of injustice to Mr X to warrant us investigating. Being the subject of a safeguarding concern is not, in itself, an injustice.
In addition, we will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because we cannot achieve the outcomes he is seeking: He wants the case to be re-opened in order to “clear his name”, but the outcome of the original assessment (no further action) was in Mr X’s favour. The Council’s focus was on deciding whether action should be taken to safeguard his child, not on proving or disproving Mr X’s innocence.
It would not be proportionate to recommend the Council involves the LADO at this point, due to its decision to take no further action.
It is not our role to obtain information for complainants, and it is open to Mr X to contact the Information Commissioner if he believes the Council has not shared information that he is entitled to.
We would not ask a Council to alter or remove content from its records retrospectively. The records reflect the position at the time they were produced, and Mr X’s complaint forms part of the case record. Our intervention would achieve nothing more.
Therefore, there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.
It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we are unable to deal with the substantive issue. We will therefore also not consider Mr X’s complaint about the complaints process.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of injustice to warrant us investigating. In addition, we could not achieve the outcomes he seeks.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman