Hull council failures left children at risk from mother's violent partner

Hull council failures left children at risk from mother's violent partner

Council criticised by ombudsman for repeated failures that forced aunt to take children in after boy, 14, was threatened with knife



Hull city council has been sharply criticised by the local government ombudsman over its "failures" to act on complaints that children were in danger from their mother's "mentally ill, violent" partner.

In 2007, an aunt and social workers from a neighbouring authority reported to the council that a 14-year-old boy and his 11-year-old sister were at risk living with their mother and her partner.

However, despite months of repeated complaints that the children were in danger, the council repeatedly "failed to respond" and left the aunt with "no alternative but to take the children in without any financial or other support". On one occasion the boy was threatened with a knife but still the council did not act.

The trainee social worker on the case left an assessment incomplete, did not visit the home of the children and subsequently denied that meetings with the aunt and other social workers took place.

Anne Seex, the ombudsman, described the failures as "maladministration" and warned that "in the context of child protection, these failures could have had very serious consequences".

The office of the local government ombudsman has reported a rising caseload in this sensitive area of council work. It received 1,384 complaints and inquiries about children's services over the past year – almost 40% up on the previous 12 months.

Hull city council has agreed to pay the aunt £7,665, a quarter of the sum she would have received as a carer's allowance for the time the children lived with her. It also launched a review "to establish whether the failures identified by the investigation could still occur today".

Hull said its "systems for record-keeping and complaints procedures have already been updated" and argued that council guidance on how to place children "within the extended family" were now "clearer".

Jon Plant, Hull city council's head of localities and safeguarding, said: "Since the original involvement in this case in 2007, there is clearer guidance around the process for placement of children within extended family, particularly where families cross boundaries with more than one local authority."