The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: The Council is at fault for not progressing this complaint to stage two of the children’s statutory complaints procedure. The Council has now agreed to do so without delay and to make a payment to remedy the injustice caused by its delay in not doing so sooner.
The complaint
The complainant, who I will call Mr X, complains about the Council’s children’s services involvement with his daughter, who is a Child in Need. Mr X complained to the Ombudsman that the Council had not progressed his complaint to stage two of the statutory 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.
The complainant has had opportunity to comment on my draft decision and I considered their comments before making a final decision.
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.
At stage two the investigator and independent person will try to agree a statement of complaint with the complainant. In cases where agreement can’t be made, we expect council’s to decide if they have sufficient information to proceed. If so, they should do so.
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 Mr X complained to the Council about how its children’s services dealt with matters relating to his daughter, who is a Child in Need. The Council considered his complaints at stage one of the statutory complaints procedure. Dissatisfied with the response Mr X wrote to the Council in September 2021, asking it to progress his complaint to stage two of the procedure.
Analysis The Council should have arranged for Mr X’s complaint to be investigated at stage two of the process when he asked it to do so in September 2021. Its failure to do so is fault which has caused Mr X a delay in receiving answers to questions that he raised and has caused him frustration by the delay.
The Council has said its delay was due to staffing issues. It has recently written to Mr X inviting him to a meeting to discuss his complaint with a view of resolving the issues raised. The Council has told the Ombudsman that if Mr X would rather not meet, or if the meeting does not resolve his complaint, it will complete its stage two investigation and complete it without further delay. Mr X has told the Ombudsman that he would like to proceed with the meeting.
Agreed action
The Council has agreed that if its meeting with Mr X does not resolve his complaint, it will start its stage two investigation and complete it without further delay.
The Council has also agreed that within one month of the date of my final decision it will offer to make a payment of £200 to Mr X to remedy the time and trouble he has gone to pursuing his complaint and to reflect the delay in the Council dealing with it.
Final decision
We uphold this complaint with a finding of fault causing Mr X an injustice.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman