Complaint 1 - concerns about the conduct of the Monitoring Officer rejected on the grounds that she is too senior to be investigated
Yes, you read that right. The Complaints Team rejected a complaint from Sam Pratley, Diocesan Secretary and Chief Executive of the Diocese of Hereford, about the conduct of the Monitoring Officer, Claire Porter, on the grounds that the Monitoring Officer is too senior to be investigated.
The complaint was in relation to misleading information supplied by the Monitoring Officer to Sam Pratley when he was a co-optee on the Council’s Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee. He had written to the Council in relation to the high profile decision by the Council to place children in care with a man previously charged with 15 counts of child sexual abuse.
Sam Pratley has since resigned from the Council’s Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee and is on record saying he was “horrified” by families’ concerns and that the Committee was left “in the dark” over serious safeguarding issues.
Complaint submitted by Sam Pratley, 9 Jan 2025
Please provide us with the details of your formal complaint: I would like to make a complaint about the conduct of the monitoring officer. I feel that in an email exchange with me she divulged sensitive information, made a number of comments to me that were incorrect or misleading, showed that the councils own processes were not being followed and then closed ranks and failed to respond appropriately once challenged. I felt that monitoring officer attempted to steer me away from asking difficult questions and did this by providing misinformation and writing in an authoritative tone. Her attitude and tone towards Ms X was poor and it feels as though this 'relationship' has got in the way of objective decision making in the interests of child protection. Ms X has been labelled and marginalised and the comments below are designed to discredit her perspective. It always appeared to me that irrespective of her opinion there were certain facts from others that merited further investigation (a councillor made it clear that key information about prior charges had not been considered in a placement decision and the Police twice re-referred the case as a result of their concerns).
I have copied the gist of the emails below with the most recent first but as this an open form I have removed any reference to any names (except to show who received the emails) to avoid any data breach.
To protect the families involved in the case the email exchanges attached to the complaint are not reproduced here but were provided in evidence.
Just one day later, Sam receives this response from a junior officer:
Council Response from Bethan Pritchard, Complaints Officer, 10 Jan 2025
Dear Mr Pratley,
Thank you for completing the online complaints and feedback form. Having reviewed the details of your complaint and due to the seniority of the Monitoring Officer, within Herefordshire Council we would advise that you would need to raise your complaint directly with the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman. Ms Page would also like to apologise for not advising of this route in November, had she known the content of this complaint she would have advised this previously.
The Ombudsman decides whether it can and should investigate complaints. For example, the Ombudsman may decide not to investigate your complaint if you have not been significantly personally affected by the issue you are raising. You can find out more information about what complaints the Ombudsman may consider on its website. If you wish to raise your complaint with the Ombudsman you can find out more information about how to do so below:
Website: https://www.lgo.org.uk/how-to-complain Telephone: 0300 061 0614
Postscript
Those directly affected by the matters raised in the complaint are children. Since Mr Pratley is raising concerns about their safety, he is not directly affected, and his complaint to the Ombudsman would be rejected.
The response from the Complaints Team ensures that the Monitoring Officer can act with impunity.