Summary: We uphold Mr X’s complaint that the Council has failed to reply to his complaint within its Children Act statutory complaints’ procedure. The Council has now agreed to complete the procedure.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I will call Mr X, says the Council failed to reply to his children services’ complaint properly.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
3. Under our information sharing agreement, we will share the final decision with the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted).
4. We cannot investigate a complaint about the start of court action or what happened in court. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5/5A, paragraph 1/3, as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by Mr X and the Council.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

The statutory complaints’ procedure

7. 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.
8. The first stage of the procedure is local resolution. Councils have up to 20 working days to respond.
9. 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.
10. 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

11. Mr X complains the Council has failed to escalate his complaint to stage two of the Children Act complaints’ procedure. The Council replied at stage one in mid August 2022. Mr X requested an escalation to stage two in mid September 2022. The Council replied three weeks later refusing.
12. If we were to investigate it is likely we would find fault causing Mr X injustice because the reasons given for refusing to escalate to stage two are not in keeping with the regulations or guidance. Mr X’s complaint includes a child in need assessment and the way the Council has supported his family.

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Agreed action

13. The Council has agreed:
• To complete the stage two within 65 working days of the date of my final decision and explain his full rights under the procedure once the stage two is completed.

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Final decision

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

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman