South Ayrshire Council failed to return child to family for several years

A Scottish council failed to return a child to their family placing them in care for several years.

The child was initially removed from their parent and placed with their grandparent for a short amount of time before being put in the custody of foster carers.

A relative said that they had applied to be the child’s kinship carer but it wasn’t until several years later that the child was placed in their care.

In the complaint, the relative said that their application to be the child’s carer had been “unreasonably” delayed.

South Ayrshire Council accepted that there had been delay in assessing the child’s kinship care and identified learning from this, but did not identify any other service failures.

Following the complaint, the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman opened an investigation and sought advice from a social work adviser.

They found that there had been a failure to progress the kinship care placement timeously and to take reasonable steps to facilitate the child’s family contacts.

The watchdog added that there had also been a failure to provide specified information.

A spokesperson for the South Ayrshire Health and Social Care Partnership said: “The Health and Social Care Partnership have accepted the findings of the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO) decision report.

“This matter relates to practice between 2016 – 2020, which the HSCP have acknowledged was unacceptable.

“We have apologised to the family for these historical delays and have invested in significant improvements in our Kinship processes since this time.

“These improvements include investment in the creation of a Kinship Team and improving governance arrangement on time scales.

“In addition, the implementation of a new model of practice ‘Signs of Safety’ and ‘The Promise’ ensures that families and children are at the center of decision making, meaning wherever possible, children are kept safe and within loving relationships which are important to them.”