Summary: Miss X complained about how the Council supported her daughter to move between foster home placements. There was fault in how the Council supported Y to move between foster care placements and how it applied the statutory complaints process. This caused avoidable distress and uncertainty for Miss X and Y. The Council agreed to fully apologise, pay a financial remedy and issue reminders to its staff.

The complaint

1. Miss X complains about how the Council supported her daughter, Y, while she was in the Council’s care. She says the Council failed to support her daughter to move between foster placements and, as a result, Y was assaulted by her former foster carer. She wants the Council to apologise and to pay her and her daughter compensation.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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 an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
3. 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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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered:
• the information Miss X provided and discussed the complaint with her;
• the Council’s comments on the complaint and the supporting information it provided; and
• relevant law and guidance.
5. Miss X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.
6. Under the information sharing agreement between the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman and the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted), we will share this decision with Ofsted.

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What I found

Looked after children

7. Councils have a duty to provide accommodation for any child in need in their area who appears to them to need accommodation because:
• there is no-one who has parental responsibility for the child;
• the child is lost or abandoned; or
• the person who has been caring for the child is prevented, whether permanently or temporarily and for whatever reason, from providing suitable accommodation or care.
8. It can either provide the accommodation or arrange for accommodation to be provided. A child accommodated in this way is a ‘Looked After Child’ (LAC). (Children Act 1989, section 20)

Statutory children’s complaints procedures

9. The law sets out a three-stage procedure for councils to follow when looking at complaints about children’s social care services. The accompanying statutory guidance, ‘Getting the Best from Complaints’, explains councils’ responsibilities in more detail.
10. The first stage of the procedure is local resolution. Councils have up to 20 working days to respond.
11. If a complainant is not happy with a council’s stage one response, they can ask that it is considered at stage two. At this stage of the procedure, councils appoint an investigator and an independent person who is responsible for overseeing the investigation. Councils have up to 13 weeks to complete stage two of the process from the date of request.
12. If a complainant is unhappy with the outcome of the stage two investigation, they can ask for a stage three review by an independent panel. The council must hold the panel within 30 days of the date of request, and then issue a final response within 20 days of the panel hearing.
13. If a council has investigated something under the statutory children’s complaint process, the Ombudsman would not normally re-investigate it unless we consider the investigation was flawed. However, we may look at whether a council properly considered the findings and recommendations of the independent investigation.
14. The Ombudsman would normally expect a council and complainant to follow the full complaints procedure. The guidance sets out the circumstances in which a complaint can be referred to the Ombudsman without completing all three stages. This can only happen when the stage two investigation is robust with all complaints upheld. Councils must show they agree to meet most of the complainant’s desired outcomes and have a clear action plan for delivery.
15. The Ombudsman published a focus report in 2015 highlighting common failings in the way councils deal with complaints that are within the remit of the children’s statutory procedure. In 2021 we issued further guidance for practitioners setting out our expectations on how statutory complaints should be handled and managed.

What happened

16. Following a referral to the Council, Miss X agreed for her daughter, Y, to be accommodated by the Council in February 2022. At first, this was with Y’s grandparent, but after a few days Y went to stay with emergency foster carers arranged by the Council.
17. A few days after moving to the foster carers, Y ran away from her foster carers and a social worker. The Council reported Y as missing to the police.
18. On the same day, the foster carers told the Council they wanted to end Y’s placement with them. The Council searched for another emergency foster placement and found a suitable, alternative placement the following day.
19. Y did not have her own phone, so Y’s social worker tried to contact her through a friend it believed Y was with at the time. The social worker sent details of the new foster care placement though a text message to Y’s friend’s phone and also updated the police with details of where Y should be taken if found.
20. Miss X met Y to help her move between foster care placements. They visited the former foster carers to collect Y’s belongings. During that visit there was an altercation between Y and the foster carers. When Miss X heard this from outside the home, she tried to intervene and the police became involved.
21. Around a week later, Miss X complained to the Council about how it had managed Y’s move between foster carers and the lack of support she says it provided for the move.
22. The Council considered Miss X’s complaint under the statutory children’s complaints procedure. The Council sent a stage one response to Miss X’s complaint in late March 2022 and completed the stage two investigation in mid-July 2022.
23. The independent stage two investigation fully upheld Mrs Y’s complaint, finding that:
• the social workers involved acted properly when Y went missing, including sharing information with the police, social work teams and Y’s foster carers;
• however, social workers did not communicate the plan for Y’s move between foster carers well enough to either Y or Miss X;
• there was no evidence that Y’s social worker gave information to Y about how she could access support to move between foster carers or what would happen to her belongings;
• Y and Miss X could have reasonably understood that Y was expected to get to her new foster carers on her own;
• social workers could have managed the information and instructions for Y better; and
• there was no evidence social workers considered Y’s belongings or how these would be moved.
24. The investigation also upheld a second part of Miss X’s complaint to the Council, finding that:
• the Council failed to share a copy of a social care assessment from 2021 with Miss X;
• it was reasonable that Miss X felt she had not been listened to; and
• there has been delays in referring Y for support with her mental health.
25. The Council made its decision, based on the independent report, in mid-July 2022. While the Council agreed the second part of Miss X’s complaint should be upheld, it only ‘partially upheld’ her complaint about Y’s move between foster carers. In its decision, the Council said:
• it did not expect social workers to make notes of all conversations they have as this would not be practical;
• Miss X could have contacted the Council when she met Y to tell them Y was safe;
• Miss X could have asked the Council what arrangements had been made to move Y’s belongings;
• Miss X could have contacted the police when the incident with the foster carers happened, rather than getting involved herself; and
• it never told Miss X or Y to collect her belongings before going to the next foster care placement and did not tell Y she should go to the new foster carers alone.
26. Miss X was not satisfied with the Council’s response because she believed the incident had led to Y being excluded from school. She wanted the Council to pay for a tutor for Y to recognise the impact of the lack of support. She asked the Council to arrange a stage three review panel.
27. The Council said it refused to arrange a stage three review because it had upheld Miss X’s complaint and the only outstanding issue was over the compensation Miss X had asked for. Instead, it told Miss X to complain to the Ombudsman, which she did in December 2022.

My findings

Move between foster placements

28. If a council has investigated something under the statutory children’s complaint process, the Ombudsman would not normally re-investigate it unless we consider the investigation was flawed. Miss X has raised no concerns about how the stage two investigation was carried out and, having considered the report, I am satisfied the stage two investigation was robust and made clear, well explained findings.
29. However, I am not satisfied the Council’s decision letter properly reflected the findings of the stage two investigation report, or gave good reasons for why the Council only partially upheld the first part of Miss X’s complaint.
30. The Council’s decision placed much of the responsibility for the lack of clarify about how Y would be supported to move onto Miss X. This was despite the clear findings from the stage two investigation that its social workers could and should have explained things better to Y and Miss X. The Council’s decision also gave no consideration to the importance a young person in foster care might place on the few belongings they have with them, particularly where they are new to foster care and the fostering relationship has broken down. The Council’s attempt to explain the lack of evidence from its records by stating it should, instead, trust the recollection of its social workers over the written evidence also conflicts with the findings of the independent investigation.
31. I am satisfied there was fault in how the Council considered the independent stage two report and how it made its decision to only partially uphold Miss X’s complaint. This meant the Council did not properly accept responsibility for the failures found in the independent investigation and did not offer a suitable remedy to recognise the impact of those failures.
32. Miss X says that because the Council did not properly support Y to move between placements this led to the incident at the former foster home. I cannot say that, if the Council had acted differently, the altercation would not have happened. There is evidence that Y had a history of challenging behaviour, including using physical force against others. The evidence also shows that Y did not want to engage with her social worker and hung up on them at times.
33. Therefore, I cannot say that, if the Council had properly explained the arrangements, Y would have waited for her social worker to support her to move or that Y and Miss X would not have gone to the former foster home. However, I am satisfied there is a remaining uncertainty about whether the outcome would have been different. That is, itself, an injustice for both Miss X and Y.
34. In its stage two decision letter, the Council offered to pay £150 to recognise the injustice caused by the fault it accepted, for both the move between foster placements and the delay in referring Y for mental health support. I am not satisfied that remedy was suitable so I have recommended a different remedy below.

Statutory complaints process

35. The Council accepted there were delays in responding to Miss X’s complaint at the firs stage of the complaints process. Miss X had to chase the Council before it responded to her complaint, which it did 3 days later than the maximum time it should have taken. The Council apologised for that delay and I am satisfied that apology was a suitable remedy for the delay at this stage.
36. I am also satisfied the Council wrongly refused to consider Miss X’s complaint at the third stage of the statutory complaints process. The statutory guidance says that a council can only refuse to arrange an independent review panel where:
• it has upheld all (or substantially all) of the complaint; and
• it has agreed to meet all (or the majority of) the complainants desired outcomes.
37. Neither of these conditions were satisfied in this case. Therefore, the Council’s refusal to consider the complaint at stage three was fault. However, this did not cause Miss X any injustice, since she brought her complaint to the Ombudsman instead.

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Agreed action

38. Within one month of my final decision the Council will:
• fully apologise to Miss X and Y for the injustice caused by the faults found in its stage two independent investigation report;
• pay Miss X £200 to recognise the uncertainty caused by those failures; and
• pay Y £300 to recognise the same uncertainty and to recognise the distress caused by the delays in referring her for mental health support.
39. Within three months of my final decision the Council will remind relevant staff of:
• the importance of clear communication with children and families during moves between foster care placements;
• the need to record important information about communications with young people in vulnerable circumstances; and
• the circumstances in which an early referral to the Ombudsman is appropriate under the statutory complaints procedure and that, unless these are met, complainants are entitled to go through all stages of the process.
40. The Council will also ensure that relevant staff know about the Ombudsman’s focus report and guidance about the statutory complaints procedure.
41. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Final decision

42. I have completed my investigation. There was fault in how the Council supported Y to move between foster care placements and how it applied the statutory complaints process. This caused avoidable distress and uncertainty for Miss X and Y. The Council agreed to fully apologise, pay a financial remedy and issue reminders to its staff.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman