Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the actions of social workers before and after deciding Miss X’s children needed to be subject to child protection plans. Any injustice caused by matters other than the child protection decision is not sufficient to warrant our involvement. The decision itself was one the Council was entitled to take given the evidence before it.

The complaint

1. Miss X said social workers lied, communicated poorly, avoided questions and used threatening language to her and her children while her children were subject to child protection plans

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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:

• 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
• 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 and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Miss X’s complaint to us covered a wide range of alleged matters. I have not provided an exhaustive list, but it included:

• The manner of social workers during visits to the family home,
• The way an interview with a child at school was managed;
• What was allegedly said by social workers to Miss X;
• An alleged refusal to answer questions;
• The management of an initial child protection conference (ICPC); and
• Sending the notes of the ICPC late.

6. The decision of the ICPC is relevant here, even though Miss X has not directly complained about it, other than stating in the complaint correspondence with the Council that social workers had over-stated the risk posed by a former partner.
7. The reason why the ICPC decision is relevant is because the other matters complained of would not have caused sufficient injustice to Miss X on their own to warrant our involvement in the absence of a decision taken with fault. Child protection duties are likely to cause upset to parents as social workers have to say and do things parents disagree with. This is because the fundamental duty is to protect children from risk of harm. The injustice to the parent only becomes significant where that is caused by fault.
8. I have seen an unredacted copy of the ICPC record. Miss X said people who had not met her children or read all the documents they should have done reached decisions about them. However, it is clear that the alleged matters reported to the Council about the former partner were serious in nature. It is also clear that Miss X did not share the Council’s concerns. The Council could therefore take the view that the historic context from its records and what had been said by Miss X’s children and reported by other bodies created a need for all the children to be subject to child protection plans. That Miss X takes a different view is not evidence of fault by the Council in reaching its decision, which was within the range open to it in the circumstances.
9. In view of that, investigation of ancillary matters would be unlikely to find sufficient injustice caused by the Council’s actions in those ancillary matters alone.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault in the substantive matter of the child protection decision underlying the complaint to warrant this; and
11. The ancillary matters complained of do not therefore warrant investigation on their own because this would be unlikely to find sufficient injustice from any potential fault separate to the child protection decision itself.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman