Summary: There was fault by the Council because it did not involve Mr X in safeguarding enquiries about his child, it cannot show that Mr X and his family failed to cooperate with the enquiry, and it did not deal with his complaint properly. There was no fault in how the Council weighed up police evidence and how it involved another local authority. The Council’s shortcomings caused Mr X and his family distress and frustration. It has agreed to take action to remedy this.

The complaint

1. Mr and Mrs X complain about how the Council handled a safeguarding investigating involving their family. In particular, Mr and Mrs X complain:
• it wrote an inaccurate assessment based on false information and assumptions, and has refused to correct this;
• it failed to get important information from a former investigation by a different council;
• it did not speak to Mr X as part of the assessment;
• it did not give sufficient weight to the Police conclusions that there was no evidence and has not been clear that the allegations were false;
• it wrongly said that his family did not cooperate with the assessment and refused consent for agency checks and for information to be shared with his daughter’s school;
• it recorded their ethnicity wrongly and made assumptions about this; and
• It scored a risk factor of 7 out of a possible 10 without good reason and has not explained clearly how the scaling works.
2. Mr and Mrs X say that the Council’s failings have caused them and their family distress. It has also impacted on

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word fault to refer to these. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
4. 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)

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What I have and have not investigated

5. I have investigated the complains about the actions of the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead Council. The safeguarding process included actions by the Police and other relevant professionals. The Ombudsman has no remit to investigate the action of the Police or other professionals. The safeguarding process also included another council that had been involved with the family making allegations against Mr X’s son. I have not investigated the actions of that council as Mr X has not made a complaint about it.

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered the information provided by Mr X. I considered the information provided by the Council including its file documents. I also considered the law and guidance set out below. Both parties had the opportunity to comment on a draft of this statement. I have taken into account all comments received before issuing a final decision.
7. 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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What I found

The law, guidance, and local policies

The law on safeguarding duties

8. Councils have a duty to investigate if there is reasonable cause to suspect that a child in their area is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm. They must decide whether they should take any action to safeguard or promote the child’s welfare. (Children Act 1989, section 47)
9. 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.
10. Councils should act decisively to protect children from abuse and neglect including starting care proceedings where existing interventions are insufficient.
11. 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.
12. Section 47 of the Act places a duty on agencies, but mainly the council and the police, to make “such enquiries as they consider necessary to enable them to decide whether to take action to safeguard or promote the welfare of a child in their area”.
13. When cases involve parallel criminal and child protection investigations, a police investigation will focus on whether there is sufficient evidence to prove beyond reasonable doubt that a crime has been committed. Child protection enquiries seek to find out, on the balance of probabilities whether a child is at risk of significant harm.
14. 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.’

The Council’s safeguarding policy

15. The Council is part of a safeguarding partnership and this has published its own safeguarding partnership procedures. The Council should have regard to these as well as the statutory government guidance ‘Working together to safeguard children'.
16. The safeguarding partnership’s procedures say that the Council must contact other agencies; that it should involve all parents equally in the assessment and that both parents must be involved at the earliest opportunity.

The right to rectification

17. A person has the right to request that inaccurate data is rectified. The organisation then has to inform the person whether it has granted the request, or if it has refused, the reasons why. If the person disagrees with the decision, they can raise a complaint to the Information Commissioner.

The Council’s complaints process

18. The Council’s complaints policy sets out how to make a complaint but also says that all complaints regardless of who they are made to, will be sent to its complaints team so they can be recorded and responded to within the timeframes.
19. The Council has two stages to its complaints process. At stage one, a manager from the service the complaint relates to will respond. If the complainant is not satisfied with the Council’s response, they can ask for a review at stage two of the Council’s process. At this stage, the Assistant Director or Executive Director from that service area will review the Council’s stage one response. At both stage one and stage two, the Council aims to respond within 20 working days from when it acknowledges the complaint. Its policy says that the Council will advise the complainant if the response will take longer.
20. The Ombudsman has published a Complaint Handling Code. This sets out how we expect councils to deal with complaints made to them. The code says that a council should acknowledge a stage one and stage two complaint within five working days of receiving it. If a council has to take longer to respond to a complaint, it should explain the reasons for this to the complainant and at the same time give them details of the Ombudsman. When the Council responds to a complaint, it should tell the complainant how to escalate the complaint to the next stage or to the Ombudsman.

What happened

Background

21. Mr W is an adult who lives with his parents, Mr and Mrs X, and his siblings who are young children. Mr W has children of his own who live in another area of the country with their mother. The mother contacted the police with an allegation about Mr W. The Police, the Council and the council of the area the mother lives in, decided to call a strategy meeting under section 47 of the Children’s Act to discuss the risks to both Mr W’s own children and his younger siblings he lives with.
22. I have seen the minutes of the strategy meeting. This included the Police, the children’s health visitor, the Council, and the council where Mr W’s children and their mother live. All agencies attending the meeting shared information available about both families. All parties decided that further investigation was needed in relation to the risk to Mr W’s siblings with whom he lives. The Council said it would open child protection enquiries once the police had arrested Mr W and completed its investigation.
23. The other council could decide whether there was risk to Mr W’s own children. I have not investigated the actions of the other council in its assessment of the risk to Mr W’s own children as Mr and Mrs X have not complained about this.
24. I have seen the case notes. These note that it could be a malicious allegation, and that the Council should seek parental consent to check with other agencies. It should see the children alone where appropriate, and should seek the views of both Mr and Mrs X where possible.
25. The Council visited Mr W’s home and spoke with Mrs X and her children, Mr W’s siblings. On that day Mr X was not at home. The notes say that Mr W’s siblings were able to confidently talk to the Council and did not disclose any worries about Mr W. Mrs X said that the allegations were false and he does not pose any risk to the children, but that the mother of his children had a history of causing problems.
26. The Police visited Mr W but did not find anything concerning. The Police decided there was no basis for it to be involved further. However, the Council noted that the other authority for the area in which Mr W’s children and their mother live, had already contacted Mr W before the Police, and this might have jeopardised the Police investigation.
27. The Council produced a single assessment of the risks to Mr and Mrs X’s children, Mr W’s young siblings. The assessment described the allegation, the police findings, and the information it had gathered by its visit to the home. The Council said that it appeared that both Mr and Mrs X were committed to meeting their children’s needs at home. The assessment noted that Mr W has a challenging relationship with the mother of his children, and that the allegations could be malicious. It also said that the Council could not complete a full assessment of how Mr and Mrs X provided emotional support, guidance, and stability, nor information about the wider family, because Mr and Mrs X were not happy with the Council’s involvement and did not want further contact.
28. The Council’s assessment concluded that there was no significant risk to Mr and Mrs X’s children, Mr W’s young siblings. The assessment noted that it had concerns that drawing the children into Mr W’s difficulties may affect them negatively. The Council also noted that there were gaps in the assessment and it said that this was because Mr and Mrs X did not want the Council’s involvement. However, it concluded that there was no further role for the Council’s children’s services.
29. The Council’s assessment asks for a number between 0 and 10, where 10 means the children’s needs are being met and there are no concerns. The Council’s assessment scored a 7 on this scale.
30. In October 2023, the Council met with Mr and Mrs X and Mr W to discuss the way forward. The Council understood that Mr and Mrs X were not happy with the assessment and invited them to write in with their concerns so this could be added to the children’s records alongside the assessment.

Mr and Mrs X’s complaint to the Council

31. This section sets out the Council’s complaint handling. I have set under separate headings below the details of Mr and Mrs X’s complaint and the Council’s responses, as well as my findings on each issue.
32. Mr and Mrs X emailed the Council asking how they could make a formal complaint. The Council suggested they write in it with their concerns. Mr and Mrs X set out 13 concerns. The Council did not acknowledge the complaint and Mr and Mrs X chased it for a response in early December. They told the Council that the further delay was adding to their distress. They asked the Council to escalate the complaint to stage two of the process, particularly as it had failed to acknowledge their complaint or respond within the timescales of its policy.
33. The Council responded to the concerns on 22 December. It had not formally logged the complaint as a stage one complaint and had not signposted Mr and Mrs X to next stage of the complaints process in its response. However, it had alerted the complaints team to its response and the Council invited Mr and Mrs X to set out which of the issues they were still dissatisfied with.
34. The Council also told Mr and Mrs X that its complaints process would not address their concerns about inaccuracies in the assessment document, but they would have the right to request rectification. The Council sent Mr and Mrs X a form to use to pursue this request. It is not clear to me whether they have submitted a request for rectification of the assessment.
35. Mr and Mrs X made the stage two complaint on 15 January and the Council responded on 29 February.
36. The Council’s stage two response advised Mr and Mrs X that they could now complain to the Ombudsman. However, following the stage two response, the Council met with Mr and Mrs X. There are no notes of this meeting. Mr and Mrs X in emails to the Council say that the Council acknowledged that Mr and Mrs X’s family had done nothing wrong, that they had complied with the assessment and not obstructed the process. They asked the Council to confirm this in writing but it would not.
37. Mr and Mrs X asked for another meeting. The complaints team said it would be happy to meet with them, but as its children’s services had already set out its position and listened to their concerns, the service would not meet with them. With this in mind, the Council suggested that Mr and Mrs X complain to the Ombudsman.
38. The Council failed to signpost Mr and Mrs X to the complaints process when they requested it and did not recognise or record the list of concerns as a complaint. It is not clear when Mr and Mrs X made the stage one complaint, but the Council took from around mid-November to 22 December to respond to the complaint, so around 29 working days. When Mr and Mrs X chased the Council, it did acknowledge this but gave no timeframe for a response. Lastly, the Council failed to tell Mr and Mrs X how to escalate the complaint when it sent its stage one response. The Council’s handling of stage one was fault.
39. The Council also took too long to response to Mr and Mrs X’s stage two complaint. It took around 33 working days. I cannot see that the Council explained to Mr and Mrs X why this would take longer than the 20 working days its policy allows. Again this was fault by the Council.
40. The Council held a meeting with Mr and Mrs X about the complaint responses but failed to keep any record of the meeting or what was said. I would have expected the Council to do so. Again, this was fault by the Council.
41. The Council’s shortcomings caused Mr and Mrs X distress and frustration.

The complaint that the Council’s assessment was inaccurate based on false information and assumptions, and it has refused to correct this

42. Mr and Mrs X said that the Council’s assessment was factually inaccurate and did not conclude whether the allegation against Mr W was true. Mr and Mrs X also said that the assessment did not give the context that during earlier court proceedings, they had raised concerns that Mr W’s ex-partner might make malicious allegations.
43. The Council did not uphold this complaint. It said that it was not possible to conclude whether Mr W was entirely innocent. The Council said that it would add Mr and Mrs X’s comments to the record to read alongside the assessment. The Council also invited Mr and Mrs X to pursue a rectification request of the inaccurate information.
44. There was no fault by the Council when it did not conclude or state in the assessment that the allegations were false. Its role is to assess the risk to the children. Including whether they are at risk from the consequences of malicious allegations. It could not say whether the allegation was false, and so could not state this as part of the assessment. It did note that the allegation could have been malicious and that the relationship between the two families was challenging.

The complaint that the Council failed to get important information from a former investigation by a different council

45. Mr W’s ex-partner and children live in another part of the country and have a different council. That council had been involved in the family before and also had information about court proceedings regarding childcare arrangements. Mr and Mrs X said that in these proceedings they had raised a concern that Mr W’s ex-partner may raise false allegations. The Council told Mr and Mrs X that it would need to get permission of the court to see these documents.
46. However, the other council was at the strategy meeting and was able to give the Council relevant information about the family.
47. It is for the Council to decide what information it needed to complete the assessment. It liaised with the other council, making them part of the legal safeguarding meeting, and was able to use the contextual information it had provided. The Council described the relationship between Mr W and his ex-partner as challenging, and given the seriousness of the allegations, it is likely that the Council would have continued with safeguarding enquiries and an assessment of risk regardless of whether the allegation was false or not. There was no fault by the Council in how it liaised with the other council.

The complaint that the Council did not speak to Mr X as part of the assessment

48. Mr X was away when the Council visited Mrs X and the children at home. In its complaint responses the Council said that it should include all relevant people in the assessment. It acknowledged that it could have telephoned Mr X but decided not to do so because Mrs X had told it that she did not want any further contact from the Council.
49. The local safeguarding procedures say that all parents should be involved at the earliest opportunity and included in the assessment. Mrs X may have told the Council that she did not want any services from it. However, this did not prevent the Council from contacting Mr X in accordance with the procedures. I also note that the assessment does not make clear that the Council has not interviewed Mr X and it does not assess his impact on the risk to the children, whether that is a protective factor or not. The Council’s failure to include Mr X and to make his lack of inclusion clear in the assessment was fault by the Council.
50. This is unlikely to have altered the assessment significantly as the Council decided that further safeguarding was not necessary. However, it caused the family distress and contributed to a sense of unfairness.

The complaint that the Council did not give sufficient weight to the Police conclusions that there was no evidence and it has not been clear that the allegations were false

51. Mr and Mrs X have set out that they and Mr W complied with the Police immediately. They say the Police accepted that the allegation was malicious but the Council’s assessment does not say that the allegation was false. They say the investigation should have focussed on the people making the false allegations and not on Mr and Mrs X’s family.
52. In its complaint responses, the Council has explained that safeguarding and police investigations are separate processes with different aims and different burdens of proof. The Council needed to complete its own safeguarding investigation of risks to Mr and Mrs X’s own young children.
53. There was no fault in how the Council weighed up the Police’s conclusions. The Council would still have needed to complete its safeguarding enquiries of risk associated with the allegation itself if true, and even the risk to young children in an environment of false allegations. The assessment was clear the Police had found no evidence and the allegation had not been substantiated by the Police or the Council. I have seen the safeguarding minutes and the Police have not said to the Council that the allegations were false. As such, the Council could not state this in the assessment.

The complaint the Council wrongly said that his family did not cooperate with the assessment and refused consent for agency checks and for information to be shared with his daughter’s school

54. Mrs X says that she was compliant when the Council visited her unannounced and invited them into her home, but the Council has not mentioned this in the assessment. Mrs X says she did not refuse to allow the Council to make any checks with other agencies and the Council did not ask her for consent for this. Mr and Mrs X are concerned that the assessment suggests that they intervened to stop the Council contacting their daughter’s school. Mrs X also says she did not refuse any further visits and in fact her and her husband would have welcomed this.
55. In its complaint responses, the Council says that Mrs X refused a further visit and when she asked for all future communication to be in writing, the Council had understood this meant she was not willing to meet further. The Council says this led it to conclude that Mr and Mrs X were not fully engaging in the safeguarding enquiries or the assessment.
56. However, in its dealings with Mr and Mrs X following the assessment, the Council first said that it had not contacted the school because it did not know which school one of the children went to, and then that it had not because Mrs X did not consent to this.
57. The Council also explained that it would have contacted their child’s school, but decided this was not necessary. In response to my enquiries, the Council has acknowledged that it did not need Mr and Mrs X’s consent to make further enquiries of the school or others involved with the family, but it tries to work cooperatively.
58. The Council says Mr and Mrs X said they did not want further support or services but has acknowledged that it may have misinterpreted this to mean that Mr and Mrs X were refusing to cooperate.
59. The Council did not need consent to check with other agencies and the school. It was fault when the Council said it could not do a full assessment because Mrs X had refused consent. It is not clear that Mrs X had refused to cooperate with the assessment, and in any case, the Council could still have contacted the school and other agencies without their consent. If it decided that this was not required due to there not being a substantial risk then that should be recorded on the assessment.
60. The Council’s shortcomings have caused Mr and Mrs X and their family distress.

The complaint that the Council recorded Mrs X’s ethnicity wrongly and made assumptions about this

61. The Council recorded Mrs X’s ethnicity on the assessment but wrongly assumed this. It has acknowledged its mistake and that it should have asked Mrs X. The Council has apologised to Mrs X. This is a proportionate remedy for the impact of the fault by the Council.

The complaint that the Council scored a risk factor of 7 out of a possible 10 without good reason and has not explained clearly how the scaling works

62. Mr and Mrs X are concerned that the Council scored a risk factor of seven out of a possible ten. They also point to the fact that as the assessment incorrectly recorded that they had not cooperated with the Council, any risk score should be reviewed on the basis that this was not based on an accurate assessment.
63. In its response to Mr and Mrs X’s complaint, the Council explained that the score of seven was relatively low because ten means no risk at all, which is unlikely to apply to most situations. The Council also suggested that the score had been lowered as Mr and Mrs X had not cooperated with the assessment.
64. I asked the Council to explain this further. It has told me that the score is not just about parenting but includes where information is missing or unavailable. The Council noted that the police investigation had not concluded whether Mr W had committed an offence, and had not included a forensic investigation.
65. I can understand Mr and Mrs X’s concern, especially amid uncertainty that this score was in part based on a disputed understanding that they would not cooperate with the assessment. However, it is for the Council to decide the score and it has to be based on the known risks. If, for whatever reason, the Council did not have enough information to fully assess, then the score has to reflect this. This is the case, even if the Council decide not to continue a full assessment, which it was entitled to decide based on the information it had gathered so far. The Council has been able to explain the reason for its score setting aside the dispute about whether the family was cooperating, and so I have no basis to criticise its decision.

Conclusions

66. There was fault by the Council because it:
• failed to refer Mr and Mrs X to the complaints process when they asked;
• failed to acknowledge their stage one and stage two complaints, keep them updated, and respond within the timeframes set out in its policy;
• failed to keep notes of the meeting it had with Mr and Mrs X following the stage two complaint response;
• failed to involve Mr X in the assessment and safeguarding enquiries, in accordance with its local procedures and did not make this clear in the assessment;
• recorded in the assessment that Mr and Mrs X did not consent to it checking with other agencies and did not cooperate with the assessment, but it cannot show that this is accurate;
• recorded in the assessment that it could not fully complete this due to a lack of consent without establishing this and without acknowledging that it does not need the parent’s consent to assess risk to a child under safeguarding procedures; and
• wrongly recorded Mrs X’s ethnicity.
67. There was no fault in how the Council:
• weighed up the police evidence or that the assessment does not say whether the allegation was false;
• Dealt with information from another council; or
• Decided how to score the risk in the assessment;
68. The Council’s shortcomings have caused Mr and Mrs X distress, frustration and put them to time and trouble in pursuing matters.

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Agreed action

69. The Council has agreed my recommendation to take the following action within one month of the date of this decision. The Council will:
• Apologise to Mr and Mrs X. We publish guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The organisation should consider this guidance in making the apology I have recommended in my findings.
• The Council cannot remove or alter the assessment or the records, and as there is no current safeguarding concern, there is no basis for me to recommend that it do another assessment. However, the Council will place a note on the file that lists the faults identified above as relevant to the assessment.
• If the Council has shared the assessment with other agencies, it will write to them with my findings.
• The Council will pay to Mr and Mrs X a symbolic payment of £250 in recognition of the distress it caused them.
• Share this decision with relevant staff.
70. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Final decision

71. I have completed my investigation. There was fault by the Council causing injustice to Mr and Mrs X.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman