The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We uphold X’s complaint that the Council delayed in considering their complaint within its children statutory complaints’ procedure. The Council has agreed to do so without further delay.
The complaint
The complainant, whom I will call X, complains about the Council’s children services’ actions.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended) Under our information sharing agreement, we will share the final decision with the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted).
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by X and the Council.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
The statutory complaints’ procedure The law sets out a three-stage procedure for councils to follow when looking at complaints about children’s social care services. The accompanying statutory guidance, Getting the Best from Complaints, explains councils’ responsibilities in more detail.
The first stage of the procedure is local resolution. Councils have up to 20 working days to respond.
If a complainant is not happy with a council’s stage one response, they can ask that it is considered at stage two. At this stage of the procedure, councils appoint an investigator and an independent person who is responsible for overseeing the investigation. Councils have up to 13 weeks to complete stage two of the process from the date of request.
If a complainant is unhappy with the outcome of the stage two investigation, they can ask for a stage three review by an independent panel. The Council must hold the panel within 30 days of the date of request, and then issue a final response within 20 days of the panel hearing.
What happened X complained to the Council about a failure to safeguard a child. The Council replied within its Children Act statutory complaints’ process. This progressed to Stage Two which finished in July 2021. X requested a stage three review panel. The Council has accepted that it has failed to carry this out and has recently offered to do so.
An investigation is likely to find fault causing X an injustice because the Council has failed to meet the requirements of the Children Act statutory complaints procedure regulations.
Agreed action
The Council has agreed to: Complete stage three of the Children Act procedure within 50 working days of the date of this decision.
Pay X £300 for the delays so far.
Final decision
I uphold this complaint with a finding of fault causing an injustice.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman