Summary: The Council is at fault for delaying consideration of this complaint at stage two of the children’s statutory complaints procedure. The Council has now allocated the complaint to an independent person and will complete its stage two investigation. It has also agreed to offer to make a payment to the complainant to remedy the time and trouble its delay has caused her.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I will call Ms X, complains about he actions of the Council’s children’s services however has not received a stage two response to her complaint.

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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).

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
6. The complainant now has an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I will consider their comments before making a final decision.

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My assessment

The statutory complains 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. Ms X complained to the Council about the actions of its children’s services. The Council responded to Ms X’s complaint at stage one of the statutory complaints procedure in December 2020. However, Ms X was dissatisfied and requester her complaint be progressed to stage two. Ms X did not receive a response so complained to the Ombudsman.
12. The Council has explained that the delay in responding to Ms X’s complains was caused by a large volume of complaints taking up the capacity of Independent Officers and Independent Persons. However, since complaining to the Ombudsman Ms X’s complaint has been allocated to an Independent Officer who will contact her shortly to progress her complaint.

Analysis

13. The Council should have completed a stage one investigation into Ms X’s complaint within 13 weeks. It did not and this is fault. Ms X has not received answers to questions she raised about support for her son and has been caused frustration by the delay.

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Agreed action

14. The Council has agreed to offer to make a payment to Miss X of £300 to remedy the time and trouble she has gone to in pursuing her complaints, and to reflect the Council’s delay in dealing with them.

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Final decision

15. I uphold this complaint with a finding of fault.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman