The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s child protection actions concerning Mr X’s family. This would be unlikely to lead to a different or worthwhile outcome from that already achieved as the result of the Council’s investigation. We would be unlikely to establish the claimed injustice was the sole result of failings by the Council. The Council has also agreed to correct any factual inaccuracies in its records and to refer Mr X to the Information Commissioner’s Office if he remains dissatisfied when it has done that.
The complaint
Mr X said the Council has refused to investigate new issues raised as a result of his recent subject access request. He said this included not informing him and his partner of child protection enquiries, not having a record of an interview with the couple’s child that he said the child found upsetting, and statements that suggested decisions had been made before assessments were completed. He said the Council had wrongly regarded matters as data and record-keeping issues.
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: there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or there is another body better placed to consider this complaint, 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 and the Council.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Mr X and his partner became parents. Later, according to the Stage 2 report into Mr X’s complaint to the Council, his partner was convicted of an offence that it is stated led Probation to deem the partner a medium risk to children, specifically children of one gender within an age range. It stated Mr X’s partner moved out of the family home.
The Council’s investigation into Mr X’s complaint found there had been some delay in 2022-23 in considering whether contact between the partner and the couple’s child needed to be supervised, and whether the partner could stay overnight. It found decision-making had not been consistent and there were problems with record-keeping. It apologised to the couple and agreed to amend any factual errors in its records, which run to several hundred pages. It has told us that it will refer the couple to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) when it has completed this work if they remain dissatisfied, but stated it will not alter professional opinions recorded. Were we to investigate the same matters, we would not recommend more than that.
Mr X says he has since discovered other issues as a result of making a subject access request to the Council. In the sense of potential inaccuracies in records, he has the same right to approach the ICO the Council has already confirmed it will alert him to if he is dissatisfied with its factual corrections. However, other matters are likely to be ones of professional judgement by social workers.
Mr X’s partner is stated to have a conviction for an offence that it is stated led Probation to deem the partner a medium risk to children, specifically children of one gender within an age range. The couple’s child is of that gender and would reach the age range in question within a relatively short time. Child protection duties outrank duties to the parents of children. For example, councils do not have to tell parents they are considering child protection measures if they think doing so might place a child at risk. And while the part of complaint was about not recording an interview with the child, it is not fault for a social worker to interview children alone, without their parents present, where there are concerns about a parent. Any issue concerning what was recorded or not recorded would relate to missing data in the sense of absence, erasure or non-disclosure. Professional practice would also involve the synthesis of hypothesis and evidence, with the view evolving and settling. Any direct claims contrary to evidence that remain in a completed assessment would be matters where Mr X could approach the ICO. In short, I am not satisfied that a further or forensic investigation by us of the Council’s records, either as disclosed to Mr X, or in an unredacted form, would lead to a substantially different or worthwhile outcome.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because doing so would not be likely to add to the Council’s own investigation, or lead to a different or worthwhile outcome.
The ICO is also better placed than us to consider data complaints as it has powers to order correction or erasure, and to impose penalties, that we do not have.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman