Summary: We uphold Mx X’s complaint that the Council has failed to reply to their complaint within its Children Act statutory complaints’ procedure. The Council has now agreed to complete the next stage of the procedure.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I will call Mx X, says the Council failed to reply to their children services’ complaint properly.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
3. Under our information sharing agreement, we will share the final decision with the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted).
4. We cannot investigate a complaint about the start of court action or what happened in court. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5/5A, paragraph 1/3, as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by Mx X and the Council.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

The statutory complaints’ procedure

7. 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.
8. The first stage of the procedure is local resolution. Councils have up to 20 working days to respond.
9. 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.
10. 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

11. Mx X complains the Council has not followed its children services procedures properly and has not properly replied to their complaint. Mx X complained in December 2021 and it seems the Council replied at Stage One of the Children Act statutory complaints procedure in March 2022. Mx X was not satisfied by that reply and requested escalation to Stage Two which has not yet been completed.
12. If we were to investigate it is likely we would find fault causing Mx X injustice because the Council has failed to comply with the Children Act statutory complaint regulations.

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Agreed action

13. The Council has agreed to:
• Complete the Stage Two within a month of my final decision and notify Mx X about their rights under the procedure.

• Pay Mx X £100 for the injustice caused by the delays in the complaints process so far.

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Final decision

14. I uphold this complaint with a finding of fault causing an injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman