Summary: The Council upheld some of Mr B’s complaint that it failed to provide reports before conferences. It also failed to address the concerns Mr B raised about inaccuracies in some reports and minutes. This caused Mr B avoidable distress. The Council agrees actions to remedy the injustice caused to Mr B.

The complaint

1. Mr B is unhappy with the way the Council responded to his complaint about children’s services involvement with his family.
2. Mr B says the Council failed to:
• Handle his complaint in line with its policy.
• Address all of his complaint issues.
3. Mr B also says the Council blocked his communication with Bucks Carers, Special Educational Needs (SEN) service and Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS).
4. He says this has caused him distress because the issues he complained about are unresolved.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

5. 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)
6. The Information Commissioner's Office considers complaints about freedom of information. Its decision notices may be appealed to the First Tier Tribunal (Information Rights). So where we receive complaints about freedom of information, we normally consider it reasonable to expect the person to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner.
7. If we are satisfied with a council’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

8. I considered the information Mr B provided with his complaint. I made enquiries with the Council and considered its response with the relevant law and guidance.
9. Mr B and the Council had the opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I carefully considered all the comments I received.

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What I found

Council complaint policy

10. The Council has a two-stage complaint procedure:

Stage 1 (Service Response)

• When a customer raises an issue, it will check to see whether it should treat it as a complaint under this procedure.
• It will acknowledge receipt of the complaint by email, post or phone within three working days.
• A senior officer from the service being complained about will oversee an investigation to try and resolve the issues.
• The Council will provide a written response within 20 working days, but wherever possible, will aim to respond within 10 working days. If it is not able to do this, it can extend the timescale and will let the customer know.

Stage 2 (A review of Stage 1)

• If the customer is not satisfied with the outcome at stage one, they can ask for the deputy monitoring officer to oversee a review of their complaint. This will be carried out by a central team who will independently review the stage one response and provide a response to the stage two complaint.
• The customer should provide full details in writing of which parts of the complaint remain unresolved. In addition, a desired outcome should be given.
• The deputy monitoring officer will decide if a stage two review is appropriate. They will write to the customer within five working days to tell them how the Council are going to proceed.
• If accepted, the deputy monitoring officer will conduct a stage two review independently from the service being complained about, and send the customer their response.
• The Council aim to provide a written response within 20 working days. If it is not able to do this, it will let the customer know and give a new timescale.
5. The Council may refuse a complaint at either stage if there is any other process available to deal with the issue. If it does refuse a complaint, it will explain why and tell the person making the complaint where else they can take their complaint.
6. If the customer is not satisfied after receiving the stage two response, the Council refers them to us and provides our contact details.

What happened

13. Mr B wrote to the Council in October 2019. He was unhappy with the Councils social work assessment. He says the reports were inaccurate and the social worker lacked the relevant experience to manage and understand the specific needs of his family. He also said he had not received the report in sufficient time before the case conference meeting.
14. The Council met with Mr B in November 2019. It went through the issues raised in his letter. It apologised for the lack of communication from the social worker and failing to provide the report 48 hours before the conference. The Council gave Mr B a copy of the reports and agreed to meet again to record any inaccuracies and add them to the file.
15. Between December 2019 and February 2020 there was ongoing correspondence between Mr B and the Council about his complaint and other issues. He remained unhappy with the Council’s response and asked for his complaint to move to stage two of the complaint process.
16. The Council accepted Mr B’s request. It provided its stage two response in August 2020. It wrote to Mr B to explain the delays due to the impact of COVID-19. Mr B added to the complaint in March 2020. He complained the Council blocked his contact with Bucks Carers, a support service commissioned by the Council.
17. The monitoring officer considered 35 points Mr B raised in his complaint, some of these were grouped in themes. The stage two review:
• Upheld/ partially upheld eight complaints.
• Did not uphold eight complaints.
• Did not make a finding on two complaints.
18. The Council apologised and offered to place Mr B’s complaint document of the children’s social care file.
19. Mr B remained unhappy with the Council’s response and complained to the Ombudsman.

My findings

20. Mr B raised a lot of issues in his complaint to the Council and it responded to these in its stage two report. I do not intend to repeat the stage two investigation as there does not appear to be fault in the way this was carried out.
21. My findings will consider the outstanding matters. I have summarised my findings under these headings.

Complaint handling

22. Mr B complains about the delay. He also says the Council failed to follow its complaint procedure.
23. I do not find fault with the Council for the way it handled Mr B’s complaint. The Council handled the complaint in line with its published procedures.
24. When it could not provide its stage two response within the 20-day timeframe it wrote to Mr B to keep him updated and explained the delay.
25. Mr B says the Council ‘blocked his rights to the complaints process’. When Mr B remained unhappy after the stage two response the Council told Mr B to bring his complaint to us. This is in line with its published procedure. The Council explained this to Mr B and gave him details how to complaint to us. It is not fault for the Council to provide its final response then refer a complainant to us.

Unresolved complaint issues

26. Mr B says the Council failed to respond to his complaint that it “blocked” his contact with:
• Bucks Carers;
• Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services; and
• The Special Educational Needs (SEN) service.
27. The Council says it did not prevent any of the services contacting Mr B.
28. I reviewed the Council’s emails and found no evidence to support this part of Mr B’s complaint. The emails support the Council's response that it did not block contact with any of these services.

The Council’s stage two report

29. The Council upheld/partially held some of Mr B’s complaints at stage two. These were:
• A delay providing Mr B with reports before case conference and incorrectly recording it had been shared with Mr B in the conference minutes.
• Incorrectly recording the conference report was factually correct when Mr B had raised concerns about the report content.
• Mr B lost contact time with his children because the social worker was late.
• The social worker failed to review the notes to make sure they were correct.
• Delay responding to a letter Mr B sent in December 2019.
• A delay locating and returning some of the children’s belongings.
• Social worker failed to attend a core group meeting.
30. The Council apologised for these faults and said it would place a copy of the complaint document on the children’s files.
31. The Council found fault during its stage two investigation, but it failed to consider what injustice the fault may have caused Mr B. It is only by considering the injustice that we can decide whether a remedy is appropriate and, if so, what the remedy may be.
32. It was clearly a very challenging time for Mr B and his family. His children were not in his care and there were assessments, reports and meetings about the children and family. I can understand the distress and frustration Mr B experienced when the Council failed to provide him with the relevant reports before and after these important meetings.
33. I can also understand this was made worse because when he did receive them he felt there were inaccuracies that were not addressed properly when he told the Council.
34. The above fault the Council found at stage two caused Mr B distress and frustration. It also caused Mr B additional time and trouble bringing his complaint to us. The Council agrees to take action to remedy this injustice to Mr B.

Agreed action

35. Within one month of my final decision the Council agrees to:
• Pay Mr B £400 to recognise the distress, time and trouble it caused him.
• Provide evidence it has placed Mr B’s document on the children’s files, as agreed in its stage two response.
36. Within two months of my final decision the Council agrees to:
• Remind relevant officers of the importance of ensuring parents receive reports at least 48 hours before conferences. It should also remind officers of how to respond to any concerns about inaccuracies in reports or meeting minutes.

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Final decision

37. I find fault with the Council. It agrees actions to remedy the injustice.

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Parts of the complaint that I did not investigate

38. Mr B complained the Council failed to respond to his requests for information. Mr B should complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) about this part of his complaint.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman