Overview:

Key to names used

• Mr Y The complainant
• Ms X His friend and co-complainant

Summary

Ms X complained the Council did not act when she raised concerns about Mr Y’s welfare. She also complained about the Council’s handling of her complaint. Ms X said the Council’s actions caused distress to Mr Y, his family and Ms X. The Council was at fault. It has not evidenced it considered if it needed to act to safeguard Mr Y. This left Mr Y at risk of harm and caused Ms X, Mr Y and his family uncertainty. The Council’s complaint handling was poor and this caused frustration to Ms X.

Finding

Fault causing injustice and recommendations made.

Recommendations

The Council must consider the report and confirm within three months the action it has taken or proposes to take. The Council should consider the report at its full Council, Cabinet or other appropriately delegated committee of elected members and we will require evidence of this. (Local Government Act 1974, section 31(2), as amended)

In addition to the requirements set out above, to remedy the injustice caused the Council should carry out the following actions within one month of the date of this report:

• apologise to Mr Y and Ms X for the injustice caused by the fault identified in this case. We publish guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The organisation should consider this guidance in making the apology we have recommended in our findings.

• pay Mr Y £2,000 for leaving him at risk of harm.

• pay Ms X £200 to acknowledge the time and trouble she has spent pursuing this complaint.

• Within three months of the date of this report the Council should:

• undertake a lessons learned exercise with all relevant staff and develop an action plan to prevent the same problems recurring in future;

• as part of the action plan, review its safeguarding policy to ensure the Council considers safeguarding referrals, rather than requiring a completed form;

• provide training to relevant staff on accepting safeguarding referrals based on whether it meets the threshold, rather than whether they are in a certain format;

• provide training, with reference to our guidance, to relevant staff on effective complaint handling. This should include identifying the appropriate procedure, sending responses on the correct templates and resolving issues quickly using a common sense approach;

• provide an update on progress against the Council’s action plan to deal with the backlog in email communications and police reports and any further action planned if progress is not as planned; and

• refer this report, the lessons learned outcomes and the Council’s two action plans to the Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and the relevant scrutiny committee and keep both regularly updated on progress.

The Council has accepted these recommendations.

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