Summary
Mr C complained that the council had unreasonably refused to progress his complaint about social work matters to a complaints review committee (CRC). The council said that a CRC was not the appropriate route for the issues raised by Mr C and did not fall within the remit of the committee. Mr C was unhappy with this response and brought his complaint to us.
We took independent advice from a social worker. We found that Mr C's complaint was eligible to be progressed to a CRC and, therefore, we upheld his complaint.
Recommendations
What we asked the organisation to do in this case: Apologise to Mr C for not holding a CRC. The apology should meet the standards set out in the SPSO guidelines on apology available at https://www.spso.org.uk/leaflets-and-guidance.
In relation to complaints handling, we recommended: The council should now progress Mr C's complaint to a CRC.
We have asked the organisation to provide us with evidence that they have implemented the recommendations we have made on this case by the deadline we set.
Related reading
View Decision Report 201702471 as a PDF (12.5 KB) Updated: December 2, 2018