The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: Miss X complains the Council has failed to provide contact with her child who is in foster care and has failed to respond adequately to concerns about this child. She complains it has also failed to provide sufficient mental health support and to respond to her complaints adequately. The Council is not at fault. Some of Miss X’s complaints are out of our jurisdiction as they have been considered by a court.
The complaint
The complainant, who I refer to here as Miss X, complains under four main themes as follows: The Council has impeded contact with her youngest daughter, B. In particular: she has not been facilitated to see B as frequently as was ordered by the family court; the Council has withdrawn or refused funding for contact; and the Council has refused to allow Miss X’s partner to participate in contact visits with B.
The Council has not responded adequately to Miss X’s safeguarding concerns about her children’s foster care, including concerns about the detrimental impact on B of another foster child in the same placement.
The Council has not provided sufficient mental health support. In particular: she and her daughter were placed in an assessment centre which was formerly a children’s home where Miss X suffered abuse; the Council failed to inform her mental health team that it would be making an application to court after her son’s birth, which it had promised to do. This meant she did not receive support from the team; and she received inadequate mental health support while in the placement centre.
The Council has not handled her complaints adequately, has ordered her not to make further complaints and has wrongly treated her as a vexatious complainant.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
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) We cannot investigate a complaint if someone has started court action about the matter. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended) If we are satisfied with a council’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)
How I considered this complaint
I spoke to Miss X and considered information provided by Miss X and the Council. I shared my draft decision with both parties and gave them the opportunity to comment before finalising my decision.
What I found
Care proceedings in respect of Miss X’s youngest daughter, B, concluded in October 2020. B was placed with a carer under a Special Guardianship Order (SGO). An SGO is an order made by the Family Court that states a child or young person should live with a person who is not their parent. The person with whom the child is placed becomes their Special Guardian. B’s Special Guardian was previously a foster carer for Miss X’s oldest daughter Z, who is now looked after by a different local authority, Council 2.
I address each of Miss X’s complaints below according to four themes: Complaints about contact The final care plan for B said contact between Miss X and the child should be tapered off over a month, followed by supported sessions every two months at a contact centre. In 2021 Miss X complained that she had not been given the correct amount of contact. The Council has sent me a list of Miss X’s contact dates. This shows that Miss X saw B according to the regime set out in the care plan until May 2021, when she began court proceedings in a bid for increased contact.
The Council also advised me it had funded a one-off referral fee to the contact centre as well as four supervised contact sessions at £80 each. Supervised sessions are for a single family, whereas in supported sessions, which are free, several families use the centre’s space at the same time. The Council was under no obligation to fund supervised sessions but did so to support Miss X’s contact with B. The contact centre had refused to allow unsupervised contact due to Miss X’s behaviour.
The Council agreed that Miss X’s partner could attend contact sessions with B and he attended two supervised sessions. I have seen an email the Council sent to to Miss X in July confirming that her partner could attend contact with Miss X if this was what she wanted.
The final court hearing on Miss X’s contact was held in October 2021. The court ruled that the Council should not fund further supervised sessions and left decisions on contact to B’s Special Guardian.
Analysis: The Council has provided me with an account of Miss X’s contact sessions. Based on that account I cannot see evidence of fault in respect of contact between October 2020 and the start of court proceedings on contact. We cannot investigate matters that are the subject of court proceedings as these are outside of our jurisdiction. Prior to the court proceedings the Council funded supervised contact sessions when it was under no obligation to do so. There is no evidence Miss X’s partner was barred from attending contact sessions before court proceedings started.
Safeguarding concerns In 2021 Z made allegations about her foster carer, who is also B’s Special Guardian. The Council told me that as a result of Miss X’s concerns about this she applied to the family court for the Special Guardianship Order in respect of B to be rescinded.
Analysis: I do not intend to investigate Miss X’s safeguarding concerns about the Special Guardian further as these have been considered by the court.
Mental health support The Council told me that when Miss X was placed in a residential unit she advised social workers she had lived there when it was a children’s home and had been abused there. The Council told me it asked Miss X if she wished to move to a different placement but she declined. I have seen the Council’s record of a meeting with Miss X. The record states Miss X said she did not wish to be moved from the building as she had a support network nearby. I have also seen a document from Miss X’s solicitor confirming she did not want to be moved from the placement.
In summer 2021 Miss X had a baby son, C. Prior to C’s birth, mental health workers attended a meeting with the Council in which the Council’s plans to apply to the court for a care order in respect of C were discussed. The care order, which was granted, allowed the Council to take the baby into its care. The Council has provided me with evidence to show it discussed Miss X with her mental health team in the weeks leading to the birth. One email refers to Miss X’s mood in relation to “the upcoming removal” which shows the team was aware of the Council’s plans.
Miss X also complained of inadequate mental health support while in a residential placement with C. The Council has provided documentary evidence that the Council’s crisis team was available to Miss X during this stay and that it liaised with NHS mental health teams about support for her. Miss X had an assigned NHS mental health nurse who visited her in the placement. In July 2021 the family court ordered Miss X to leave the placement, leaving C in the care of his father. The Council has provided evidence that it established Miss X had appropriate support after the separation.
Analysis: There is no fault by the Council in respect of provision of mental health support to Miss X.
Complaints handling The Council has provided evidence that Miss X submitted a large volume of complaints. For example, she submitted around two dozen complaints in August 2021 and more than a dozen the following month. The Council had previously advised Miss X that the volume of her complaints was affecting the Council’s ability to provide a service to others. The Council also provided evidence it had attempted to respond to the complaints where possible.
Analysis: The Council has found the volume of complaints from Miss X, some of which were repeat complaints about historic issues that it had already responded to, overwhelming. Nevertheless, it has attempted to respond to her concerns and provide advice. There is no fault by the Council. It was justified in asking Miss X to limit the number of her complaints and in choosing not to respond to some complaints.
Final decision
I have completed my investigation with a finding that the Council is not at fault.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman