Summary: We have upheld Miss X’s complaint about the Council’s refusal to consider her complaints under the statutory procedure for children’s social care. The Council has now agreed to investigate Miss X’s complaint under the statutory procedure. This provides a proportionate remedy for the injustice caused.

The complaint

1. Miss X complained about the Council’s refusal to consider her complaint that it failed to from harm when she was a child and it was involved with her family since from 2000. Miss X believes the Council was aware her mother failed to register her birth for several years and failed to act on this or the physical and mental abuse she and her siblings suffered. Miss X says this has had a lasting impact on her ability to continue education and apply for work. She wants the Council to exercise discretion to investigate her complaints under the statutory procedure despite events occurring more than 12 months ago.

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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 provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we are satisfied with the actions an organisation has taken or proposes to take. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(7), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. If we investigated this complaint, we would be likely to find fault with the Council. This is because it has failed to properly consider whether it should exercise discretion to investigate Miss X’s late complaint under section 3.3 of the Statutory Procedure for Children Social Care complaints (Getting the Best from Complaints). This says councils have discretion to accept complaints made more than one year after the events occurring, taking the following factors into account:

• the complainant’s vulnerability (at the time of events and after);
• is there still a benefit to the complainant in proceeding;
• is there likely to be sufficient access to information or individuals involved at the time, to enable an effective and fair investigation of the complaint; and,
• should action be taken in light of human rights based legislation.

6. We therefore asked the Council to reconsider its decision not to investigate Miss X’s complaint, ensuring it took account of the above factors in reaching its decision.

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Agreed action

7. To its credit the Council has agreed to resolve the complaint. It has already apologised to Miss X and confirmed it will start investigating her complaint under the statutory procedure.
8. Within one month of this final decision, the Council should have obtained Miss X’s statement of complaint and be seeking to provide its substantive response to her within the timescales set out in the statutory complaint procedure for children social care (Children’s social care: getting the best from complaints).
9. The Council should provide us with evidence that the above recommendation has been completed.

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Final decision

10. We have upheld this complaint because the Council has agreed to resolve the complaint early by providing a proportionate remedy for the injustice caused to Miss X.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman