Ombudsman raps council over savings for looked-after child
Bridgend County Borough Council failed to monitor a looked-after child’s savings accounts adequately and has refused to follow a recommendation to compensate the complainant, the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales has found.
Ombudsman Nick Bennett said unless Bridgend complied he would be forced to issue a further special report, something which he had only done once in his tenure as ombudsman.
He has asked the council to provide him with proposals for reviewing other similar cases because of concerns that the failings identified could be systemic.
‘Mr N’ complained to the ombudsman after his placement broke down in 2014 that the council had not managed his savings properly, some of which were used to pay for trips for which he should have received a special allowance and that the savings he received in January 2015 were substantially less than he believed they should have been.
The ombudsman found Bridgend’s monitoring was “both intermittent and inadequate” and that it failed to keep adequate records, amounting to maladministration.
Bennett said the case raised important issues over looked-after children and their savings, and he had shared the report with the Welsh Government.
He noted that Bridgend had not yet followed his recommendation to pay Mr N £3,310. He made no criticism of the foster carers.
Mr Bennett said: “I hope that the issues my investigation has raised will lead to positive changes and the development of further national policy on long term savings for looked-after children.
“The complainant deserves to have this payment made to him and I am most disappointed that to date, the council has refused to do so.”
A council statement said it had accepted the Ombudsman's recommendations except for the compensation “as the council’s position is that Mr N has not suffered injustice or hardship in consequence of this matter”.
It said there was “no legal requirement or national policy or guidance in place regarding savings for looked after children, aside from the establishment of a junior ISA, and therefore the council cannot enforce the need for foster carers to provide savings for looked after children and indeed could not terminate their services as a foster carer if they chose not to save for their looked-after child”.
Bridgend said it offered Mr N £1,100 to reimburse him for holidays that were funded from his savings, but was “concerned that it was originally informed that the matter had been closed, only for it to be reopened and be published a year later due to it being in the public interest”.
Mark Smulian
