The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: Miss C complained the Council, in providing a remedy for her children’s services complaint, failed to properly consider the lack of support and the impact that had on her. The Council has put in place comprehensive procedural changes with further changes planned. An additional financial remedy and some further actions are required.
The complaint
The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Miss C, complained the Council, in providing a remedy for her complaint, failed to properly consider the impact the lack of support has had on her.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a Council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended) 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) If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
As part of the investigation, I have: considered the complaint and Miss C's comments; made enquiries of the Council and considered the comments and documents the Council provided.
Miss C and the organisation had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.
Under our information sharing agreement, we will share this decision with the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted).
What I found
Children’s statutory complaints process 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 (65 working days) to complete stage two of the process from the date of request, or the date the complaint is finalised.
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.
The Ombudsman would normally expect a council and complainant to follow the full complaints procedure.
What happened Miss C is a kinship foster carer and has been caring for a family member’s child since 2015. That child has complex needs. The original care order recognised Miss C would need support and respite.
The Council considered a complaint about various issues, including lack of support and respite, in 2022 and 2023. The Council considered the complaint at all three stages of the complaints procedure and upheld the complaint.
Analysis The Council has already considered Miss C’s complaint through its children's services complaints procedure at all three stages. As Miss C has already had an independent investigation of her concerns I have not investigated the substantive issues raised in the complaint. I have instead considered whether the Council's remedy for the complaint is satisfactory.
The Council accepted it was at fault in the following areas: it failed to provide respite to Miss C to enable her to attend her son's graduation which meant she missed it; it failed to provide Miss C with support between 2019 and 2022 despite the fact it had assessed her as requiring two nights a month respite; it changed the social worker repeatedly which meant Miss C had to keep repeating the same details and her requests for respite were delayed or lost; it failed to provide respite care to Miss C when she was ill and needed hospital treatment which resulted in her missing medical care; it failed to provide two workers during respite as it had failed to reassess the child’s changing needs since 2018 which meant Miss C had to stay to help during what was supposed to be respite care; it delayed carrying out a carers assessment; and it delayed assessing Miss C’s respite needs.
A lot of those issues relate to periods which fall outside the 12 month period the Ombudsman will normally investigate. As I am not investigating the substantive issues and the Council has already reached a conclusion on issues going back more than 12 months I am exercising the Ombudsman's discretion to consider an appropriate remedy for Miss C for the period the Council investigated.
The remedy the Council offered Miss C was: daytime respite provision of 15 hours per week in the school holidays; daytime respite provision of five hours each week in term time on Saturdays; overnight respite (two nights a month until October 2023 when it was increased to 3 nights a month); an offer of £250 (now increased to £500); for the respite care provider to put in place future dates for respite.
The Council has also put in place, or intends to put in place, the following administrative changes: a reminder to officers about highlighting any outstanding actions to the management team when taking planned and unplanned leave; greater management oversight of cases on duty which means each team manager completes one week as duty manager on a rota to ensure greater consistency; embedding the good practice of completing regular case summaries on case records with a reminder to officers to highlight issues, outstanding tasks and areas of priority work when leaving employment; improved staff recruitment and retention within the children with disability team which means there are currently no young people awaiting allocation to a social worker.
completed a tender refresh in October 2023 to increase the number of providers as it acknowledges improvements are required in the short break provision available to meet the needs of children and young people. That only resulted in appointment of one additional provider; the Council intends to complete a review and mapping exercise in relation to short break provision in preparation for the contract procurement exercise which will take place by March 2025; officers are working together to review young people receiving a short breaks package, those who receive a partial short breaks package and those who do not receive short break provision due to a lack of provision. That review was to be completed by the end of March 2024; carry out a mapping exercise for the requirements for a brokerage model to support commissioning of short breaks for children and young people. The intention is for the model to provide data of the young people receiving and awaiting a short break to ensure short breaks meet their contractual obligations; submitted a business case to develop the social care IT recording system to allow it to record short break packages. That is so it can track data relating to young people receiving and awaiting a short break, to monitor trends and provide forecasting; drafting the parent carer pathway procedure and process to make the pathway clearer; reviewing social care overnight respite provision to support the contract retender.
I consider the procedural remedies the Council has identified satisfactory to address the issues that have arisen in this case. However, it is clear there are still some issues outstanding from what was agreed and I therefore make the following recommendations: for the Council to consider, with Miss C, what to include in the emergency plan for times when the respite care provider is not available; to explore the option of a family link worker.
For the financial remedy for Miss C it is clear she has experienced considerable distress and has missed out on respite care since 2019 (based on the period the Council investigated). The Council has offered £500. I consider that an acceptable remedy to reflect the time and trouble Miss C has had to go to in pursuing her complaint.
However, I do not consider that is sufficient to reflect the lack of support and lack of respite care provision between 2019 and 2023. It is clear from the documentary records Miss C has experienced significant stress with little support with a child with complex needs. I am satisfied the Council knew Miss C had her own health issues to deal with and there was risk of a placement breakdown. To recognise the lack of support and respite provision between 2019 and 2023 I recommended the Council pay Miss C £1,000, making a total financial remedy of £1,500. The Council has agreed to my recommendations.
I recognise there are issues with the respite care the Council has now put in place as a result of this complaint. However, those are new issues which fall outside the scope of the complaint to the Council. The Ombudsman does not have jurisdiction to consider a complaint until it has been through the Council's complaints procedure. I therefore cannot comment on the issues that have taken place now the Council has put respite into place. If Miss C wants to pursue those issues further she will need to make a further complaint to the Council.
Agreed action
Within one month of my decision the Council should: pay Miss C £1,500; arrange a meeting with Miss C and agree what to include in the emergency plan for times when the respite care provider is not available; explore the option of a family link worker.
Final decision
I have completed my investigation and uphold the complaint.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman