Mother fails in bid to have safeguarding children board disclose full report from serious case review

CYSUR, the Mid and West Wales Safeguarding Children Board, had no power to release a serious case review written by a now defunct body, the High Court has found.

In Pollock, R (On the Application Of) v Cysur: Mid And West Wales Safeguarding Children Board & Anor [2023] EWHC 299 (Admin) His Honour Judge Keyser KC, sitting as a judge of the High Court, rejected a case brought by Sarah Pollock, who wanted to see the full report into her daughter’s suicide, not just the executive summary with which she had been provided.

Her daughter committed suicide in April 2012, aged 14. A serious case review was conducted by the now defunct Pembrokeshire Safeguarding Children Board whose full report has never been made available to Ms Pollock.

The girl was born in 1997 and in December 2011 became a ‘looked after child’ under Pembrokeshire County Council’s care.

Ms Pollock challenged CYSUR’s decision in September 2021 not to disclose the report.

Giving permission to bring the claim HHJ Jarman KC found the decision to withhold the report was taken by an operational sub-group of CYSUR and not, as it had argued, by Pembrokeshire County Council.

Ms Pollock complained to the ombudsman that she had not been allowed to see the report but there was no finding made of maladministration against the council.

CYSUR subsequently contended it had no copy of the report, no control over it and no statutory power to release it.

Repeated requests for a copy of the report from Pembrokeshire’s safeguarding board and the council were rejected and in April 2021 she approached, CYSUR which said it had not existed when the report was written and referred the request to the council.

Ms Pollock then sent a pre-action letter to the council, which said she would commence proceedings for judicial review if it either declined to make a decision about disclosure or decided not to disclose it.

In October 2021 the council's head of children's services told Ms Pollock: “Pembrokeshire's Local Operational Safeguarding Group met and, as part of its business, discussed your request to release [the report].

“All of members (sic) were of a view that the overview report should not be released to you in any format.

“I as co-chair of the [group] and head of children's services - which is the agency that is required to treat the records of the board which produced the overview report as its own records - endorse the recommendations of the group not to release the [report].”

HHJ Keyser said CYSUR was right to submit that it had no power to disclose or to direct disclosure of the report.

He said: “I think that a convenient starting point is to ask what the report has to do with CYSUR. The answer seems to me to be, nothing.

“The report was produced in January 2014, more than two years before CYSUR was created.”

The judge noted CYSUR did not assume statutory responsibilities and liabilities that had formerly rested on the safeguarding board.

“The only actual relation between CYSUR and the report arose from the fact that CYSUR was asked to disclose, or to approve the disclosure of, the report,” HHJ Keyser said.

“That is no relevant relation: one can ask anyone to disclose anything, but that does not give that person any right, power or obligation to disclose the thing in question.”

He concluded: “The council accepts that it holds the report as part of its records. It also accepts that any request for disclosure of its contents under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 would have to be considered on its own merits.

“The present proceedings concern a specific decision by CYSUR. Despite the breadth of the argument before me, I do not consider it appropriate to venture into a discussion of the bodies from whom disclosure of the report might be sought or the grounds on which it might be sought.”

Mark Smulian