The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We have upheld this complaint because the Council delayed consideration of a complaint at stage one of the children’s statutory complaints procedure. The Council has now agreed to resolve the complaint by completing its stage one investigation and providing an appropriate remedy for the injustice caused to the complainant by its delay.
The complaint
The complainant, who I will call Ms X, complains about how the Council’s children’s services dealt with a child safeguarding matters concerning her grandchild. Ms X complained to the Ombudsman when the Council delayed responding to her complaint under the statutory children’s complaints procedure.
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 the complainant 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 In June 2022, Ms X complained to the Council about how it has dealt with safeguarding concerns raised regarding her grandchild, who is a child in need. Ms X contacted the Council again about her complaint and was told a response would be sent in August, but so far, no response has been sent.
If we investigated this complaint, it is likely we would find the Council at fault. This because it failed to provide Ms X with a stage one complaint response within the statutory timeframes. This has caused a delay in Ms X receiving answers to the questions she raised in her complaint.
We therefore asked the Council to consider remedying the injustice this caused Ms X by issuing a stage one response within one month. We also asked the Council to offer to make a payment to Ms X of £200 to remedy the time and trouble she has been too pursuing her complaint and to reflect the delay in providing her with a response.
To its credit, the Council agreed to resolve the complaint and offer to make the payment to Ms X and to issue a stage one response within one month of the date of this decision.
Final decision
We have upheld this complaint. The Council has agreed to resolve the complaint early by providing an appropriate remedy for the injustice caused to Ms X
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman