Summary: Mrs X complained about failings in the Council’s child protection investigation. There was some fault in the Council’s communication and record keeping, as well as a delay giving Mrs X a report before a meeting. However, there was no fault in the Council’s decision-making processes and no significant injustice.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complained about failings in the Council’s child protection investigation. This included inaccurate and incomplete reports, failing to keep records of actions, and failing to follow procedures.
2. Mrs X said the Council’s decisions to put her children on a child protection plan, and to keep them on the plan, were made without good reasons. She said it was a fact-finding mission, and the Council did not provide her children with any support throughout the process.
3. Mrs X said this resulted in harm to her children, as they no longer have confidence speaking to adults. It also impacted Mrs X financially because she left her job due to stress brought about by the Council’s investigation.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. 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 significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
5. If we are satisfied with an organisation’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)
6. Under our information sharing agreement, we will share this decision with the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted).

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How I considered this complaint

7. As part of the investigation, I considered the complaint and the information Mrs X provided.
8. I made written enquiries of the Council and considered its response along with relevant law and guidance.
9. Mrs X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

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What I found

Child protection

10. 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. (Children Act 1989, section 47)
11. Harm means ill-treatment or the impairment of health or development, including, for example, impairment suffered from seeing or hearing the ill-treatment of another. (The Children Act 1989 31(9))  
12. When a council has concerns about a child, the law requires it to take action to find out more. It only has to have ‘reasonable cause to suspect’. This is a lower burden of proof than that used by the Police or the Courts who require evidence ‘beyond reasonable doubt’.
13. Councils should act decisively to protect children from abuse and neglect including starting care proceedings where existing interventions are insufficient.
14. 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 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.

15. If the information gathered under section 47 supports concerns and the child may remain at risk of significant harm the social worker will arrange an initial child protection conference (ICPC). The ICPC decides what action is needed to safeguard the child. This may include a recommendation that the child should be supported by a Child Protection (CP) Plan.
16. After the ICPC, there will be one or more Review Child Protection Conferences to consider progress on action taken to safeguard the child and whether the CP Plan should be maintained, amended, or discontinued.
17. The Child Protection Conference is a multi-agency body and is not in itself a body in the Ombudsman's jurisdiction.
18. The Child Protection Conference plays an advisory role. But the final decision, for example whether to place a child on a CP Plan or to discontinue a Plan, is the responsibility of the council. We would generally consider it appropriate for a council to follow the recommendations of the Child Protection Conference unless there was good reason not to.

Local authority designated officers

19. The Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) is a person responsible for managing and overseeing investigations into allegations that somebody who works with children has behaved in a way that may pose a risk to children.

What happened

20. I have summarised below some key events leading to Mrs X’s complaint. This is not intended to be a detailed account of what took place.
21. The Council received a safeguarding referral in March 2023 about an incident where Mrs X’s husband (Mr X) grabbed one of the children.
22. The Council attended a strategy discussion with the Police and Health Service. They unanimously agreed the circumstances met the threshold for a section 47 investigation. The Council ended the investigation after Mrs X worked with Children’s Services on safety planning.
23. The Council received another safeguarding referral in May 2023. This time about an incident between Mrs X and Mr X.
24. The Council held a strategy discussion with the Police, the children’s school, an education professional, the LADO, and the Health Service. Again, all professionals agreed the circumstances met the threshold for a section 47 investigation.
25. The Council then held an ICPC in June 2023 along with professionals from the Police, Health Service, the children’s school, a domestic abuse voluntary organisation, and the probation service. Mrs X and Mr X were also present.
26. The attendees reached a majority decision that the children should be subject to a CP Plan due to emotional abuse. One attendee disagreed. A domestic abuse professional considered the Council could manage the situation on a Child in Need (CIN) Plan and escalate if things did not improve.
27. Mrs X did not agree with the decision. She considered the children were no more impacted than any other children living through parental separation. Mr X is recorded to support the decision to place the children on a CP Plan.
28. The professionals considered the children needed to be protected from incidents of domestic abuse and parental conflict, plus age-inappropriate information.
29. The CP Plan included weekly social worker visits for the first month, then every two weeks.
30. The Council attended a Review CPC on 7 September 2023 along with the Police, the school, GP, and a domestic abuse worker. All professionals agreed for the children to remain on the CP Plan. They decided Mrs X and Mr X had not made enough progress reducing the risk of harm, and gave examples of times they did not adhere to the CP Plan.
31. Mrs X complained to the Council in November 2023 about errors resulting in her children being placed on, and remaining on, a CP Plan. She said the Council:
• Did not get all the information.
• Asked her children inappropriate questions.
• Relied on inaccurate information.
• Held ‘off the record’ discussions with her husband and a director of education.
• Demanded information on threat of court action.
• Stirred up trouble between the adult parties.
• Did not visit her children as often as it should.
• Did not respond to her communications.
32. Mrs X asked the Council to review its actions.
33. A further multi-agency Review CPC was held on 23 January 2024. The social worker reported a consistent period where the children had not reported hearing or seeing anything harmful between their parents. They recommended stepping the children down from the CP Plan. The professionals present decided Mrs X’s children no longer needed to be on the CP Plan.
34. The Council sent its complaint response in April 2024. It thanked Mrs X for follow up emails, conversations, and a meeting in March, to expand on her complaint. The Council partially upheld the complaint. It said there were some areas of practice where it could have done better and did not meet standards. It said:
• Social workers do not have off the record conversations and should record everything. The social worker did not record information on Mrs X’s children’s case file promptly, meaning the Council missed some information from Mrs X’s Subject Access Request.
• The social worker spoke to an education representative to alert them to the errors Mrs X said were in their report. The Council considered this was appropriate. But it accepted it was not appropriate to tell Mrs X’s husband she was upset.
• It apologised for the frustration and inconvenience Mrs X suffered in receiving a case conference report late, with no time to read it or prepare for the meeting. It accepted it did not meet practice standards, and Mrs X did not receive the service she should have.
• An officer asked Mrs X’s husband to share evidence of any concerns that could impact on the children. The officer reviewed emails Mr X’s husband provided and shared one of them with the education trust after seeking advice from the Local Authority Designated Officer. The Council did not consider the officer acted incorrectly.
• It recognised Mrs X followed the CP Plan, attended sessions with social workers, and ensured her children did as well. It said it presented this at multi-agency meetings.
• The decision to place the children on a CP Plan was a multi-agency one after considering the available evidence. No subsequent information would have changed the decision. The children remained on the CP Plan after the three-month review as professionals considered they remained exposed to behaviours between Mrs X and her husband that was emotionally harmful. It moved the second review conference forward as it considered the risk had fallen.
• It accepted some social worker visits did not follow a planned intervention. The Council planned to address this with the social worker through learning and development.

My investigation

35. Mrs X considers there were errors by the Council throughout the process. She disagreed with its decision to put her children on a CP Plan, as it did nothing to support them.
36. Mrs X told me the social worker did no work to support her children throughout the process. It was just fact finding about what happened between Mrs X and Mr X. This made the situation worse.
37. Mrs X said her children had to remain on a CP Plan because there was still indirect contact between her and Mr X. Mrs X challenged this decision and complained. She said the decision to take her children off the CP Plan felt very quick and a response to her complaint.
38. The Council told me its report for the ICPC meeting was late, not allowing Mrs X enough time to read it before the meeting. It should have sent Mrs X the report 48 hours beforehand and did not meet its standard practice in this case. The Council now has an escalation process in place for late reports.
39. The Council also accepted it made an error with a child’s name in the report. However, it said the names were correct across the main body of the report. The Council corrected some details on its database but did not reopen the report itself to amend it.
40. The Council is aware Mrs X was not happy with the school report for the ICPC. However, it said the school is the author and it is not for the Council to amend it. The ICPC minutes show discussion of the school report and Mrs X’s concerns about it.
41. The Council said it does not ever consider discussions between professionals to be ‘off record’. However, it accepted the assigned social worker did not record one of their discussions and did not maintain the file in line with the Council’s standard practice.
42. The Council supported the social worker with an action plan and supervision. It also oversees record keeping in general through audits and regular performance meetings.
43. The Council said the allocated social worker visited the children 23 times in 2023 and undertook direct work with them one-to-one. Also, the Council provided support in line with the CP Plan and held core group meetings. However, it accepted there were occasions it did not plan visits promptly or within the 10-day timescales.
44. The Council took the children off the CP Plan after recommendations from the social worker. Professionals agreed this at a multi-agency RCPC meeting. Mrs X’s complaint did not influence the decision.

Analysis

45. The Ombudsman is not an appeal body. This means we do not take a second look at a decision to decide if it was wrong. Instead, we look at the processes an organisation followed to make its decision. If we consider it followed those processes correctly, we cannot question whether the decision was right or wrong, regardless of whether someone disagrees with the decision the organisation made.
46. I can appreciate why Mrs X felt the CP Plan was unnecessary, as many families and children go through separation and parental conflict. However, the decision to place a child on a CP plan is matter of professional judgement for the Council officers and other agencies involved. There were three reported incidents in a six-month period which prompted the decision. The incidents were discussed at multi-agency meetings, with the majority agreeing the children should be put on a CP Plan due to the risk of emotional harm. I found no fault in the decision-making process and therefore cannot question the decision.
47. Once the CP Plan was in place, the Council had concerns about Mrs X sharing age-inappropriate information with one of the children, and further parental conflict. I therefore cannot question the Council’s decision in considering the situation had not satisfactorily improved, and the children needed to stay on the CP Plan.
48. I have not seen evidence to suggest the Council’s decisions were unduly influenced by, or solely based on, the school report which Mrs X said is inaccurate. I found the attendees of the multi-agency meetings were aware of Mrs X’s concerns about the school report. And this was one piece of information and viewpoint amongst several others.
49. I also do not criticise the Council for saying it cannot amend the school report, as it is not the author.
50. Part of the CP Plan was for contact between Mrs X and Mr X to be by email only, to prevent further acrimony. The Council asked Mr X for copies of emails with Mrs X. Mrs X considers the Council made inappropriate threats of court action if Mr X did not agree. Given the CP Plan included contact arrangements for Mrs X and Mr X, and the Council wanted to see evidence of any concerns impacting the children, it considers this was relevant. I therefore do not criticise the Council for requesting this information.
51. Mrs X is unhappy the Council shared the email correspondence with her employer. I understand that was on the advice of the LADO, because Mrs X holds a position of trust. From a child protection and safeguarding perspective, this is not something I can criticise. Mrs X can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office or take legal advice if she considers this was an inappropriate or unlawful sharing of her confidential information.
52. The Council took the children off the CP Plan when it was satisfied the risk reduced. That was because there were no further reports of parental conflict. I did not see evidence this decision was made just because Mrs X complained.
53. The Council accepted some fault in terms of its communication, record keeping, and a delay issuing a report in advance of a meeting. It also apologised for any frustration and inconvenience. However, I did not find those errors impacted the Council’s decision-making or caused Mrs X significant injustice. That was because the Council followed the correct decision-making process. It also rearranged the ICPC to give Mrs X time to consider its report, and she attended the ICPC and both review meetings. I found the minutes of those meetings confirm Mrs X’s views and concerns were discussed and considered by attendees.
54. The Council also accepted some issues with the social worker planning support visits, but maintains it supported the children in line with the CP Plan. I have seen evidence of regular social worker visits to the children between March 2023 and January 2024. While the 10-day timescale for visits was missed on occasion, reasons were recorded, and I did not see evidence of significant fault or a lack of the required support.
55. I recognise the distress Mrs X and her children suffered because of the child protection process. However, I did not find this resulted from fault by the Council. Child protection matters can be stressful, but I found the Council followed the correct decision-making procedure and took decisions it was entitled to take.
56. The Council apologised to Mrs X and raised the identified faults with the social worker through training and supervision. It also put a process in place to flag late reports. I am satisfied this is in keeping with what the Ombudsman would recommend. I therefore do not make any further recommendations.

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Final decision

57. I completed my investigation. There was some fault in the Council’s communication and record keeping, as well as a delay giving Mrs X a report before a meeting. However, there was no fault in the Council’s decision-making processes and no significant injustice.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman