South Gloucestershire Council (21 005 651)
Category : Children's care services > Looked after children
Decision : Upheld
Decision date : 12 Aug 2021
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: The Council is at fault for delaying considering complaints at stage one of the children’s statutory complaints procedure. The Council has agreed to complete its stage one investigation without further delay and will offer to make a payment to the complainant to remedy the time and trouble its delay has caused her.
The complaint
- The complainant, who I will call Miss X, complains about the Council’s children’s services involvement with her and her son, who is looked after. Miss X says the Council has failed to provide them with appropriate support, failed to include her views, recorded inaccurate information, and mishandled their personal data.
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 Miss X and the Council.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
- The complainant now has an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I will consider their comments before making a final decision.
My assessment
The statutory complains 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.
What happened
- In January 2020, Mrs C raised reported about a data protection breach to the Council. In May 2020, she complained about the response she received. She said that the Council’s children’s services had mishandled her and her son’s personal data and delayed providing a response to her concerns. The Council said it would consider the complaint under the statutory complaints process.
- The Council received a further complaint in November 2020. This was a detailed complaint about children’s services about the lack of support she and her son had received, inaccurate assessments and that it had failed to include her views when decisions were made.
- The Council has grouped both of Miss X’s complaints together, to be considered under the statutory complaints process. However, Miss X has not yet received a response at stage one of this process and has therefore complained to the Ombudsman.
Analysis
- The Council should have completed a stage one investigation into Miss X’s complaints within 20 working days after receiving they. It did not and this is fault. Miss X has not received answers to questions she raised about support for her son and has been caused frustration by the delay.
Agreed action
- Within one month of the date of this decision, the Council has agreed to:
- Complete its stage one investigation and write to Miss X to inform her of the outcome, ensuring it provides her with appropriate information about her rights under the process.
- Make a payment to Miss X of £500 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.
Final decision
- I uphold this complaint with a finding of fault causing an injustice.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman