The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We have upheld Ms X’s complaint about the Council’s delay in completing consideration of her complaints under the statutory procedure. The Council has agreed to resolve this complaint early by providing a proportionate remedy for the injustice caused to Ms X by the delay.
The complaint
Ms X complains about the Council’s handling of matters relating to her children. She is also unhappy about the Council’s delay in responding to her complaints under the statutory complaint procedure. She wants the Council to undertake proper assessments for her children.
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 provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we are satisfied with the actions an organisation has taken or proposes to take. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(7), as amended) Under our information sharing agreement, we will share this 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 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. We also published practitioner guidance on the procedures, setting out our expectations. Councils have a maximum of 20 working days to complete stage one, 65 working days to complete stage two and 50 working days to complete stage three.
If we were to investigate it is likely we would find fault causing injustice to Ms X because the Council has taken longer than the statutory timescales to investigate and respond to her complaints under stages one and two. The combined delay in progressing these complaints is just over five months. This has no doubt caused injustice to Ms X.
We will not investigate the substantive complaints Ms X has raised while the Council is still in the process of considering those issues. Ms X will however have the opportunity to come back to us if she remains dissatisfied after the Council has completed its consideration of her complaint under stage three.
We asked the Council to consider taking early action to remedy the injustice caused by delay to Ms X.
Agreed action
To its credit the Council has agreed to resolve the complaint by taking the following action within one month of this decision: issuing a written apology to Ms X for the injustice caused by the delay; making a remedy payment of £250 (£50 per month) for the five month delay in responding to Ms X’s complaint at stages one and two; and, ensuring the remaining stage three complaint process is completed within statutory timescales.
The Council should provide us with evidence to show the above action has been completed.
Final decision
We have upheld this complaint because the Council has agreed to resolve the complaint early by providing a proportionate remedy for the injustice caused to Ms X.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman