Ombudsman calls on council to pay £1,000 for “interfering in family affairs”

Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council should apologise to a local man and pay him £1,000 compensation over its handling of a child care case, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has said.

The Ombudsman’s report, published in the last week, said Rotherham “interfered in family affairs” and a social worker exceeded her powers.

Mr X complained that the council facilitated the removal of his son from his school by the child’s mother, advised him to lie to his son, failed to take his concerns seriously about the children’s safety in their mother’s care and failed to investigate his complaint properly.

He is separated from Z, the mother of his three school-age children. In 2020 police arrested Z due to concerns about her treatment of them, and took the children to stay with Mr X.

The council did not apply for a court order to remove the children from Z or to say that they should live with one parent or another. Both kept parental responsibility.

Rotherham carried out a child protection investigation and decided the children should stay with Mr X while it conducted a further assessment of Z.

A later child protection conference decided that the children were not at risk of significant harm in their father’s care and a ‘child in need’ plan was issued.

Z was permitted supervised contact with the children but Mr X later decided contact should only be by telephone.

A few months later Z collected the two older children, both girls, and took them to live with her. She did not collect boy B, who attended a different school.

Later that day a social worker called Mr X to say Z had told the council she had the girls in her care.

Mr X said the social worker advised him to lie to B about his siblings whereabouts, which he did, a decision he said later affected his relationship with his son.

After this Mr X contacted the police, but they and the council agreed there were no grounds to remove the children from their mother.

The next day Mr X called the girls’ school to advise he would collect them that day. The social worker then told Mr X if he did so: “I would be discussing whether the children should be subject to a Child Protection Plan as this would be emotionally harmful”.

In evidence to the Ombudsman, Mr X said the social worker threatened him with a negative report to a court if he collected the girls.

Social workers then visited B and asked him about going to stay with Z that night until the following weekend.

Mr X said he agreed to this under duress and suspected the social worker of having orchestrated a plot with Z to remove his son.

Following further disputes, Mr X complained to the council about the social worker’s conduct, but it did not uphold his complaints.

Looking at Mr X’s complaints that Rotherham facilitated the removal of B from his school by his mother, the Ombudsman said: “I am satisfied that the social worker made a unilateral decision to propose to B that he should stay with his mother that evening and that in doing so she overrode Mr X’s parental rights without justification. It is also unclear what powers the social worker was acting under at the time.”

The report added: “The council has failed to take account of the power imbalance between Mr X and the social worker. Mr X’s decision-making was influenced by the same social worker’s warning of child protection proceedings and concern about the ramifications of any disagreement.”

Rotherham did not properly consider the risks to B before deciding he should go to stay with his mother, the Ombudsman found.

“The social worker essentially rescinded the decision on supervision with regards to contact between Z and B without discussion with senior managers,” the report said.

“She arranged for B to stay unsupervised at his mother’s home within a short time of the matter first being discussed with him, without the ‘transition phase’ her own records said was necessary. This caused injustice to B and Mr X, whose views and needs were not fully considered.”

Rotherham was also criticised for a ‘superficial’ investigation of Mr X’s complaint, which caused injustice.

The Ombudsman concluded Rotherham had “interfered in family affairs and imposed contact arrangements on the family [and warned] of child protection intervention when a previous conference had found no evidence Mr X posed a risk of harm to his children.

“The council treated mother and father inconsistently. It facilitated contact with the mother who had collected the children unannounced, despite the fact there were child protection concerns, and then warned the father of very serious negative consequences if he did the same.”

The report concluded: “The social worker was acting over and above her powers by imposing arrangements on Mr X rather than waiting for the courts to resolve the impasse. This is fault by the council, which caused injustice to Mr X.”

Rotherham has been contacted for comment.

Mark Smulian