Milton Keynes foster carer 'mistreated to stop me questioning'

Claire won a complaint against Milton Keynes Council

A foster carer said she believed she was mistreated and bullied by a council to stop her questioning the authority.

Claire, not her real name, said Milton Keynes Council referred her inappropriately to safeguarding and "intimidated" her in meetings.

She felt it came after she started to "speak on behalf of some of my children". An ombudsman later found fault "causing her injustice".

The council said it took "any concerns reported to us very seriously".

An inspection of the authority's children's services by Ofsted in October and November found "shortfalls" in the fostering service "existed for too long without effective action being taken".

Inspectors have found "shortfalls" in Milton Keynes Council's fostering services

Claire was a council foster carer since 2015, but she has since left fostering for the authority and now works for an agency.

She said: "I was mistreated by Milton Keynes Council. I believe I was bullied... not in the beginning but [for] around two years."

Claire said she had a "number of meetings where I was taken into the meeting by a manager and basically intimidated or [they] tried to intimidate me by questioning my role and what I'd been doing".

"So I feel that as soon as I started to question their role and things they may have been doing wrong towards the children, it was kind of like, 'We don't like this behaviour from a foster carer. We want to keep her quiet'," she said.

"Things got a lot worse", she said, and the council referred her to the local authority designated officer (LADO), who is involved if there are concerns a child has been harmed.

"The LADO told them there was no criteria, that it shouldn't have been done. But the management did not tell me that. They led me to believe that I was still under investigation," said Claire.

She took a case to the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO), which upheld her complaint and the council "accepted significant fault" and apologised, the LGO said.

'Children lose out'

But she claims "the bullying is still going on" to other foster carers and social workers, while she said the council also refused to include foster carers in their dignity at work policy.

"All local authorities and especially Milton Keynes are so short of foster carers, but we can't work like this so we end up leaving.

"The lack of foster carers is so difficult for children because they're ultimately the ones that lose out because they have nowhere to go."

The council has 146 children cared for by 119 in-house foster carers, who work alongside a team of 14 social workers.

The authority confirmed that since April 2020, 29 "mainstream carers have chosen to leave the service, of which two told us they were unhappy".

"We don't believe this is high compared to other areas. It's not uncommon for carers to stop fostering in order to adopt, or because the children they foster have left formal care, because their personal circumstances have changed, or to retire," it said.

Neither Claire nor a second foster carer who had an ombudsman complaint upheld were the two who told the council they were unhappy when they left, added the authority.

Linda Chestney said there was a "high turnover" of staff at the council

Linda Chestney has been looking after young people in supported lodgings, which falls under the fostering service, for the past decade, and said within the council there was a "high turnover" of staff.

She said she had heard concerns of some foster carers towards the council, but added: "Is it because they're short staffed [or] they don't have the resources they need?."

Ms Chestney said there was a situation when a young person under her care was in a room "not fit for human habitation", but she felt a "sort of emotional blackmail" from a mental health social worker to keep him before he moved out.

The council said: "We're disappointed that these carers feel let down.

"We're extremely proud of our foster carers, they are dedicated to providing care and a safe home for children and young people. We take any concerns reported to us very seriously.

"We want our fostering service to be recognised as outstanding and are working hard to reach that standard.

"Since our last Ofsted inspection we've recruited additional experienced social workers to support our carers and revised our training and mentoring programme, as well as introducing a 24/7 helpline for carers. Our door is always open to solve any issues."