Decision Report 201306096

Summary

Ms C, a solicitor, complained on behalf of her client (Mr A) about the council's application of their unacceptable actions policy (UAP). Mr A had been in contact with the council over a number of years about matters relating to the care of his child. Following concern about the nature and frequency of Mr A's contact with the council, they notified him that they had applied their UAP to manage his contact with them.

We found that the council had decided to implement their UAP after proper consideration had been given to Mr A's communication with their staff, so we did not uphold this aspect of the complaint. There was a lack of evidence to demonstrate that the council had applied the UAP inconsistently or that they had acted unreasonably in not inviting either Ms C or Mr A to meetings regarding his child, so we also did not uphold these aspects of the complaint although we did make a recommendation about the council's procedures for arranging such meetings.

We upheld Ms C's complaint that there appeared to be an ad-hoc approach to the council reviewing Mr A's status under the UAP and lack of communication with him about this, although we were satisfied that they had since carried out a review, so we did not make any further recommendations about this. We also found that there were unreasonable delays in some of the council's responses to Mr A's complaint, so we upheld this aspect of the complaint too.

Recommendations

We recommended that the council:

• review their procedures to ensure that parents are notified of the dates of any forthcoming reviews regarding their children; and
• take steps to ensure that complainants' representatives are notified if UAP restrictions are to apply to their correspondence as well.