By Lucy Phillips | 9 August 2011
Hull City Council has been severely criticised by the Local Government Ombudsman for repeated failures over the protection of two children.
A report, issued by ombudsman Anne Seex today, condemns the council for ignoring warnings from the children’s aunt and a neighbouring authority that the 14 year-old boy and 11 year-old girl were at serious risk while living with their mother and her mentally ill, violent partner.
The council took no action even after the boy was threatened with a knife by his mother’s partner.
On one occasion, a trainee social worker began but did not complete an assessment.
Eventually the aunt was forced to take the children in herself, without any financial or other support from the council.
Seex’s report says: ‘In the context of child protection, these failures could have had very serious consequences.’
Altogether the ombudsman notes maladministration by the council in seven different areas. Hull has now made assurances that it has updated its procedures for record keeping.
The authority has also accepted recommendations in the report that it should: pay the children’s aunt £7,665 as an allowance for the time the children lived with her (which is only 25% of what she would have received as a ‘kinship allowance’ at the time); instigate a review to establish whether failures identified in the investigation could happen again; and ensure the people it appoints to investigate child protection complaints are competent.
