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”.
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”.