Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about the Council’s decisions concerning the safeguarding of her child. There is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s actions to warrant our further involvement.

The complaint

1. Mrs X said the Council wrongly allowed her child to stay with her abusive ex-partner despite her reporting the abuse. She said it wrongly decided the matters were “parental conflict” and made comments in an assessment that were inaccurate. She said the Council was wrong to consider child protection measures on the basis the child was at risk of harm from “ongoing parental conflict”.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)

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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. A fundamental disagreement between the Council and Mrs X underlies this complaint.
6. Mrs X says she had been subject to domestic abuse from her child’s father and that the Council should not regard matters as “parental conflict”. She says the Council exposed her child to harm by allowing the child’s father to look after the child for 13 weeks, after which the child was traumatised when returning to her care. She says the Council was wrong to call a child protection conference on the basis that “ongoing parental conflict” posed a possible risk to harm to the child.
7. The Council’s view is that the child’s father’s had parental responsibility and could exercise that when Mrs X was unable to look after her child. It had no concerns about the child’s safety in their father’s care, and that who should care for the child would be a private matter for a court if the parents could not agree.
8. It is not our role to decide whether Mrs X was subject to domestic abuse by the child’s father and whether there was a consequent safeguarding risk. Instead, we can only consider whether the Council acted properly in regard to its duties. If it did so, we cannot substitute our view for the one the Council reached.
9. In this case, the evidence provided by both parties shows that Mrs X told social workers she had been subject to domestic abuse by the child’s father. The evidence states that social workers considered the evidence Mrs X showed them, but decided it did not amount to domestic abuse. That was the key decision, and it remains the Council’s view.
10. The social workers were entitled to make that decision based on their understanding of the situation as they had considered what Mrs X had said and showed them. Having made that decision, they could decide it was safe for the child’s father to exercise his parental rights. They could also direct both parties to the courts in the case of continued disagreements about contact and residence arrangements for the child. And they could consider if parental disagreements were causing the child harm.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault in the way the Council reached its decision to warrant our further involvement.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman