Recommendation WATE-(7): Ensure comprehensive and impartial complaints procedures for looked after children
From Waterhouse Inquiry — Final Report, published 15 February 2000.
Recommendation
Such complaints procedures should: (a) be neither too prescriptive nor too restrictive in categorising what constitutes a complaint; (b) encompass a wide variety of channels through which complaints by or relating to looked after children may be made or referred to the Children's Complaints Officer including teachers, doctors, nurses, police officers and elected members as well as residential care staff and social workers; (c) ensure that any person who is the subject of complaint will not be involved in the handling of the complaint.
Government response
No government response to this recommendation is on the record yet.
Delivery
No statement on delivery from the addressee has been found in the sources searched (last checked 27 February 2026). This is separate from the response above.