Blackburn with Darwen Council (23 001 621)
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We have upheld this complaint because the Council delayed considering a complaint under the children’s statutory complaints procedure. The Council has now agreed to resolve the complaint by apologising to the complainant and offering to make a payment to them to remedy the time and trouble they have been too.
The complaint
- The complainant, who I will call Mr X, complains about how the Council has dealt with matters relating to his child who is looked after. Mr X’s wife contacted the Ombudsman on Mr X’s behalf after the Council failed to respond to his complaint about these matters.
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 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)
- Under our information sharing agreement, we will share the final 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 statutory complaints procedure
- 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.
- The first stage of the procedure is local resolution. Councils have up to 20 working days to respond.
- 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.
- 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.
- The statutory guidance says that If a complaint has entered stage one the local authority is obliged to ensure the complaint proceeds to stages two and three if the complaint requests this.
- The law allows councils to suspend investigations if an investigation would prejudice court proceedings. Once the proceedings have concluded complainants can ask councils to proceed with their complaint investigation.
What happened
- Mr X complained to the Council in November about how the Council handled matters relating to his son who is looked after. Mr X met with the department lead and a forward plan has been agreed. The Council says it will provide a response to his complaint by 7 August.
Assessment
- If we were to investigate this complaint it is likely we would find fault in how the Council has dealt with Mr X’s complaint. This is because there has been a significant delay in the Council providing a response to Mr X’s complaint. This has meant Mr X has been to some considerable time and trouble and he has not received answers to the questions raised in his complaint.
- We therefore asked the Council write to Mr X within one month of the date of our final decision to apologise for the delay and to offer him a payment of £200 to remedy the time and trouble he has been too pursuing his complaint. To its credit, the Council agreed to resolve the complaint by agreeing with our recommendation.
Final decision
- We have upheld this complaint. The Council has agreed to resolve the complaint early by providing an appropriate remedy.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman