Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about children services’ actions. It is unlikely we would achieve a significantly different outcome than the Children Act statutory complaints process has.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Mr X, says the Council failed to ensure its Independent Reviewing Officer (IRO) acted properly, has not properly considered family reunification and has failed to pay him his costs for contact with his child D, who is in care.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We cannot investigate a complaint about the start of court action or what happened in court. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5/5A, paragraph 1/3, as amended)
3. 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
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
4. 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 the decision making, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by Mr X and the Council.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. Mr X’s complaint concerns his child D. D has been looked after by the Council under a Court Care Order for over three years. Since this started Mr X moved to Ireland. Mr X complained at the end of 2021 about:
• The IRO’s actions;
• The Council’s family reunification consideration;
• The Council refusing to pay all his costs of travelling to contact with D.
8. The Council considered his complaint within its Children Act statutory complaints procedure. It upheld complaints about the IRO. This includes: communication, the handover between IROs, their record keeping and case consideration. The complaints process did not uphold his complaints about family reunification or travelling costs.

Analysis

9. The stage two reports show that the Court considered the travelling costs in July/ August 2021. We cannot consider his complaint about the travelling costs as the Court considered this.
10. 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.
11. 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 flawed. However, we may look at whether a council properly considered the findings and recommendations of the independent investigation.
12. Children in care have an IRO who is responsible for ensuring councils adhere to children’s care plans. They also chair the child’s statutory review, which normally takes place every six months. These are multi agency meetings where important decisions are made. While the complaints process found some faults in the IRO’s actions it is unlikely these caused any significant injustice to Mr X. Mr X believes if the IRO had acted properly then his family would have reunified. But the evidence does not support that.

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Final decision

13. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because it is unlikely our investigation would reach a significantly different outcome.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman