Surrey County Council (21 018 022)

Category : Children's care services > Child protection

Decision : Upheld

Decision date : 06 Apr 2022

The Ombudsman's final decision:

Summary: We will uphold Ms X’s complaint, as the Council delayed considering a complaint at stage two of its corporate complaints’ procedure. The Council has agreed to complete its stage two without further delay and make a payment for the delay so far.

The complaint

  1. The complainant, whom I will call Ms X, complained in August 2021 to the Council’s about its children services actions.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

  1. 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)
  2. Under our information sharing agreement, we will share the final decision with the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted).

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

  1. I considered information provided by Ms X and the Council.
  2. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
  3. I considered Ms X’s comments on a draft version of this decision.

Back to top

My assessment

What happened

  1. Ms X complained to the Council in August 2021 about an officer’s conduct at child protection conferences involving children of her extended family. In October 2022 the Council replied at stage one of its corporate complaints’ procedure. Ms X in mid November 2021 requested the Council escalate her complaint to stage two of its procedure.
  2. The Council has accepted this has not happened.
  3. An investigation is likely to conclude the Council’s delay here is failure to comply with its complaints’ procedure and is fault which has caused Ms X some time and trouble.

Back to top

Agreed action

  1. The Council has agreed within one month of the date of my final decision to:
    • Complete its mediation stage of its stage two investigation and write to Ms X to inform her of the outcome, ensuring it provides her appropriate information about her rights under the process.
    • Make a payment to her for £100 to reflect the delays so far.

Back to top

Final decision

  1. I uphold this complaint with a finding of fault causing an injustice.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

Print this page

LGO logogram

Review your privacy settings

Required cookies

These cookies enable the website to function properly. You can only disable these by changing your browser preferences, but this will affect how the website performs.

View required cookies

Analytical cookies

Google Analytics cookies help us improve the performance of the website by understanding how visitors use the site.
We recommend you set these 'ON'.

View analytical cookies

In using Google Analytics, we do not collect or store personal information that could identify you (for example your name or address). We do not allow Google to use or share our analytics data. Google has developed a tool to help you opt out of Google Analytics cookies.

Privacy settings