Mrs A complained on her own behalf and on behalf of her husband, Mr A, about Flintshire County Council (“the Council”). She said that the Council had refused to allow her to attend Child Protection meetings with Mr A, as his advocate. Consequently, Mr A had not been updated about ongoing matters since or seen his children for some time. Mrs A said that, as their step-mother, she had also not seen the children for some time and that she had been unhappy with the Council’s initial response to her complaints.
The Ombudsman considered his role and felt that the matter was capable of being resolved without his investigation, in light of there being an additional statutory stage to a complaint about social services’ matters (an independent Stage 2 investigation).[1] He therefore invited the Council to resolve the matter by undertaking the following actions (which it agreed to do): · To make arrangements (within 1 month) to commence a Stage 2 Investigation into Mrs A’s complaint.
· To provide Mrs A with a Stage 2 complaint response within 14 days of its completion.
[1] Social Services Complaints Procedure (Wales) Regulations 2014