The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We have discontinued our investigation into Mrs B’s complaint about the Council’s complaint-handling. We could not add to what the Council has already said, and Mrs B did not suffer an injustice significant enough to justify our involvement.
The complaint
The complainant, whom I refer to as Mrs B, complains about ‘shocking’ complaints handling from the Council. She says it failed to meet its duties on two separate children’s social work complaints.
Mrs B says her first complaint – which I refer to as ‘Complaint 1’ – took 13 months to complete, and it took intervention from third parties (including the Ombudsman) for the Council to properly investigate it.
Mrs B has already accepted a financial settlement for the failings the Council identified in Complaint 1. But she says she wants a further remedy to recognise the Council’s delay in reaching a decision.
Mrs B also complains that, in her second complaint – which I refer to as Complaint 2 – the Council delayed sending her a stage 1 response and ignored two requests to escalate the complaint to stage 2.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
The Ombudsman investigates complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start or may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information from Mrs B and the Council. Both had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.
What I found
Complaint 1 When Mrs B agreed her statement of complaint with the stage 2 investigator, she listed outcomes she wanted from the complaint. One of those outcomes was compensation for a range of things, including delays to the Council’s complaint-handling.
The stage 2 investigator agreed with Mrs B’s complaint and recommended that the Council consider meeting her request for compensation. The Council offered her £6,500 to recognise all its failings, which she accepted. The Council says this settlement included money for complaint delays.
I am satisfied, from the wording of Mrs B’s stage 2 complaint and the Council’s subsequent correspondence, that the settlement Mrs B accepted was already intended to recognise delays to the Council’s complaint-handling.
Because of this, there is nothing I can add to what the Council has already said on Complaint 1, and I will not comment on it further.
Complaint 2 Complaints law and guidance Section 26 of the Children Act 1989 says councils must process certain complaints about children’s social work through a defined procedure (routinely referred to as the ‘statutory children’s complaints procedure’). The procedure itself is set out in separate Regulations.
Section 26 of the Act also says the following people may make a complaint under the statutory procedure: Any looked after child or ‘child in need’; Any parent of such a child, or person who has parental responsibility; Any foster carer for the child; or Any other person the local authority considers to have sufficient interest in the child’s welfare to make a complaint.
The Council’s own (non-statutory) two-stage complaints procedure says it will respond to most complaints within 20 working days. However, if it cannot do so, it will contact the complainant, explain why, and set a new response date. It aims to respond to all complaints within 12 weeks.
What happened At the end of January 2022 Mrs B made a complaint to the Council about its refusal to share letters she had written to the children who used to be in her care.
By early March, Mrs B had not received a response. She asked the Council to escalate her complaint to stage 2 of the statutory children’s complaints procedure (which, under the terms of the procedure, would involve an independent investigation of the complaint).
The Council said it would respond by 10 March. However, it did not do so, and Mrs B asked again for the Council to escalate the complaint to stage 2.
The Council apologised to Mrs B for the delay and asked for a further extension (to 16 March). When it also failed to meet that deadline, it then asked, again, for her to allow more time for a response.
The Council responded to the complaint on 22 March. Mrs B could not initially access the response because she was sent a time-limited link while she was on holiday, and it expired before she returned. However, she contacted the Council about this in early April and it sent a new link which she successfully accessed.
Mrs B wrote to the Council in early May, and expressed dissatisfaction with its complaint response. She said it had taken too long and it had ignored her two requests for a stage 2 investigation. However, she did not, at that point, ask for the complaint to be escalated.
The Council responded to Mrs B and offered to meet with her to discuss her areas of dissatisfaction. However, she refused, saying, “we are not prepared to put ourselves through this any longer”.
My findings
As Mrs B, by the time she made complaint 2, was not someone defined in the Children Act as being able to make a complaint under the statutory procedure, the Council dealt with the complaint under its own two-stage complaints procedure.
Although the Council did technically refuse to escalate the complaint to stage 2 after Mrs B asked it to – twice – this was before the stage 1 response. Mrs B then did not take up the opportunity to escalate the complaint after receiving the response. For this reason, she did not suffer any injustice.
The Council was late getting its response to Mrs B, for which it apologised. Although it explained to her why its response would be late, this was generally only after she had initiated contact about the delay.
However: the delay was relatively short; the Council responded to Mrs B more than once to explain; the Council apologised; and Mrs B received a response within 12 weeks – the period in which the Council aims to respond to all complaints.
Because of this, Mrs B did not suffer an injustice significant enough to justify a finding of maladministration.
In the absence of any significant injustice to Mrs B, I will discontinue my investigation.
Final decision
I have discontinued my investigation. Mrs B suffered no injustice significant enough to justify the Ombudsman’s involvement.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman