Devon County Council lost letter from woman's birth mother

Devon County Council accepts it lost the file relating to the woman's time in foster care

A council lost the file of a woman who had been in its care as a child, including a letter written by her birth mother that she had never read.

Devon County Council has been told to apologise and pay the woman £1,000 by the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO).

The letter was written when the woman was put into foster care as a child and was meant for when she was older.

The LGO said she "will never know what was in the letter her mother wrote her, and has no record of her early life".

Along with the letter, the council also lost all other records about the woman's time in foster care in the early 1990s.

Her mother died when she was a teenager and she only learned about the letter when she found it mentioned in court documents kept by her father years later.

'Apologise unreservedly'

The woman, who has not been named, contacted the council in 2019 but "despite an extensive search, the council could not find any records about Ms X as a child", the LGO report said.

The Children Act 1989 says that councils should keep records for at least 50 years.

Devon County Council accepts it has lost the woman's children's services file.

A spokesman said: "For young people and children in care it's both important for them, and in their best interests, to keep connections with their birth families.

"In this case however, a link with Ms X's birth mother had been lost. We apologise unreservedly for that, and have reviewed our practice to ensure that mistakes like this are not repeated in future."

The LGO also found fault with the way the council dealt with the woman's complaint.