Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s response to a complaint about child protection action. This is because investigation would achieve nothing significant.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mrs X, complains that the Council’s response to her complaint of its management of child protection action fails to adequately address what she regards as gross misconduct on the part of its social worker.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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:

• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Mrs X complains about the actions of a social worker in the course of child protection action relating to her children. She says that, while her husband could not live at the family home due to ongoing legal proceedings, her family cooperated with the social worker, who implied to them that her husband would be able to return when the court case finished.
6. Mrs X complains that, following her husband’s conviction, the social worker completed a substantially inaccurate assessment report. This led to the Initial Child Protection Conference initiating a higher level of intervention causing the family significant distress and uncertainty.
7. Mrs X’s subsequent complaint to the Council was substantially upheld. She is unhappy with the outcome on three specific grounds. These grounds do not justify an investigation by the Ombudsman because we would not achieve anything significant.
8. The Ombudsman will not investigate complaints which have already been upheld unless the outcome is demonstrably unreasonable. That is not the case here. Mrs X is unhappy that the Council’s finding that her complaint was substantiated does not find that the social worker was guilty of gross misconduct. Neither would an investigation by the Ombudsman. We investigate complaints of fault against councils as corporate bodies, not against individuals. We look at organisational fault, not individual professional competence. Whether a social worker’s actions amount to misconduct is a matter for their employer or, potentially, their professional body, Social Work England.
9. Mrs X has asked the Council to make clear in its records of the case that the assessment report the social worker produced is not to be relied on. Instead, it has recorded that it is disputed. Mrs X regards this as insufficient. The Ombudsman will not intervene. We do not ask councils to make alterations or additions to assessments retrospectively, as they reflect the position at the time they were produced. The most we will normally expect is that a council add a statement of the complainant’s dissenting views. Mrs X’s complaint and the Council’s findings already set these out and form part of the record, so the Ombudsman’s intervention would achieve nothing more. If Mrs X wants to pursue this matter further, she may wish to consider using her Right to Rectification.
10. Mrs X believes the financial settlement the Council has offered fails to recognise the impact the identified fault had on her family. This, in the absence of other grounds, is not so significant a matter as to warrant investigation by the Ombudsman.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because we would achieve nothing significant by doing so.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman