Summary: The Council failed to meet the statutory timescales for investigating Mr X’s complaint, causing Mr X uncertainty over the outcome of the complaint. The Council also accepted failings in its stage two consideration of Mr X’s complaint. The Council has apologised and made a payment to Mr X. It has agreed to apologise for the delays considering the complaint.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained under the children’s statutory complaint process. He complained the Council failed to ensure the safety of his children when in their mother’s care, and that Council social workers were dishonest and tampered with evidence. Mr X remains unhappy with the outcome of the independent investigation. He says it breached statutory timescales and failed to consider evidence of his allegations. He says this has caused him significant distress and time and trouble pursuing the matter. He wants the Council to consider his evidence, compensate him and make changes to ensure the same thing doesn’t happen again.

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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 significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
3. If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(1), as amended)
4. Under our information sharing agreement, we will share this decision with the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted).

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered evidence provided by Mr X and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
6. Mr X and the Council have had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I will consider any comments before making a final decision.

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What I found

The Children’s statutory complaint 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. We also published practitioner guidance on the procedures, setting out our expectations.
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 investigating officer (IO) to look into the complaint and an independent person (IP) who is responsible for overseeing the investigation and ensuring its independence.
10. Following the investigation, a senior manager (the adjudicating officer) at the council should carry out an adjudication. The officer considers the IO report and any report from the IP. They decide what the council’s response to the complaint will be, including what action it will take. The adjudicating officer should then write to the complainant with a copy of the investigation report, any report from the independent person and the adjudication response.
11. The whole stage two process should be completed within 25 working days but guidance allows an extension for up to 65 working days where required.
12. 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 working days of the date of request, and then issue a final response within 20 working days of the panel hearing.

No reinvestigation if process complete and not flawed

13. The statutory children’s complaints procedure was set up to provide children, young people and those involved in their welfare with access to an independent, thorough and prompt response to their concerns. Because of this, if a council has investigated something under the statutory children’s complaint process, the Ombudsman would not normally re-investigate it.
14. However, we may look at whether there were any flaws in the stage two investigation or stage three review panel that could call the findings into question. We may also consider whether a council properly considered the findings and recommendations of the independent investigation and review panel, and whether it has completed any recommendations without delay.

Child in Need

15. Section 17 of the Children Act 1989 says councils must safeguard and promote the welfare of children within their area who are in need.
16. A child is in need if:

• they are unlikely to achieve or maintain a reasonable standard of health or development unless the council provides support;
• their health or development is likely to be significantly impaired unless the council provides support; or
• they are disabled.

What happened

17. In early 2024 Mr X’s children were deemed children in need by the Council due to issues between Mr X and his ex-partner, Ms Y, who had moved away from Mr X with the children. The Council carried out an assessment of Mr X and put supervised contact in place.
18. In early January 2024 Mr X emailed the Council’s with concerns over Ms Y’s care for the children. On 18 January 2024 Mr X complained to the Council. He said the Council had not looked into his concerns and he was unable to monitor his children’s safety as he did not know where they and Mrs X were living. On the same day the children’s social worker asked Mr X to locate the children’s passports for Ms Y to have. Mr X was unhappy with the tone of the social worker’s message and complained again to the Council.
19. The Council met with Mr X in March 2024 to discuss his complaint. During this time Mr X had supervised access to his children. This moved to unsupervised contact around April 2024.
20. The Council responded to Mr X’s complaint at stage one of the statutory procedure on 8 April 2024. It said it was satisfied with Ms Y’s care of the children but could not tell Mr X where they were living. It said it was impractical to keep Mr X informed of the children’s health on a daily basis and it was not practical to investigate his complaint about the social worker’s message.
21. Mr X escalated his complaint to stage two on 26 June 2024. The Council appointed an investigating officer (IO) and independent person (IP) in July 2024. The IO and IP met with Mr X in late August 2024 to draft a statement of complaint. Around the same time the Council closed its social care case as it was satisfied Mr X and Ms Y could facilitate contact arrangements without its involvement.
22. The IO shared their statement of complaint with Mr X in early September 2024. Mr X amended the statement and sent it back to the IO. The IO explained to Mr X that his amendments limited the scope of the investigation. Mr X maintained his statement of complaint, which included:
• The Council has failed to ensure the safety of Mr X’s children and act on Mr X’s concerns for Ms Y.
• Social workers had lied to Mr X.
• The Council had not shared the minutes of Mr X’s initial meeting with the social worker with Mr X.
23. The IO concluded their investigation on 9 December 2024. They did not uphold any of Mr X’s complaints. However, they said the Council should have involved Mr X in child in need meetings and shared the minutes of these meetings with Mr X. The IO said Mr X had not provided specifics over what the social workers had lied about or raised the issue of the social workers passport message in the statement of complaint. The IO recommended the Council apologise to Mr X and consider a financial payment to Mr X. The IP agreed with the findings and the investigation.
24. The Council issued its stage two adjudication on 28 January 2025. It agreed with the stage two findings, apologised to Mr X and offered to pay him £300. Mr X accepted the payment but escalated his complaint to stage three of the statutory procedure in late February 2025. He said he had further issues he would like addressed and the Council’s complaint handling was unacceptable.
25. The Council held a stage three panel on 24 July 2025. It concluded the IO and IP had missed an opportunity to request evidence. It recommended the Council give Mr X a further opportunity to provide evidence and review it. The panel agreed with the rest of the stage two findings.
26. The Council issued its stage three adjudication on 7 August 2025. In mid-August it met with Mr X to review evidence from him and discuss further issues that Mr X remained unhappy with, including that he had been able to learn where the children were living due to the Council breaching confidentiality. Mr X said he no longer had a recording of his conversations with the social worker but provided screen shots of the text messages regarding the children’s passports.
27. The Council wrote to Mr X in late August 2025. It said Mr X had discovered where the children were living himself and there had been no breach of confidentiality. It was satisfied its response to contact was proportionate. It accepted its social worker had used accusatory language in the text exchange with Mr X but said this was not intentional. It said there had been a difference of interpretation between Mr X and the social worker. It said it would take the learning from the Complaint. Mr X remained unhappy and complained to the Ombudsman.

My findings

Timescales

28. We expect councils to keep to the statutory deadlines in the children’s complaint procedure. The Council failed to meet the statutory timescales at every stage of Mr X’s complaint. The Council had 20 working days to respond to Mr X’s stage one complaint, it took 81. The Council then had up to 65 working days to complete its stage two investigation. Even allowing for the Council to define Mr X’s complaint, the Council exceeded the timescale. Finally, the Council took 160 working days to complete the stage three panel, when it should have taken 20. The Council was at fault for not meeting the timescales set out in the statutory procedure, causing Mr X uncertainty and frustration over the outcome of his complaint.

Mr X’s complaints

29. We do not reinvestigate children’s statutory complaints unless we identify flaws in the stage two or stage three consideration. Despite the delays in considering Mr X’s complaint I am satisfied with the Council’s investigation and eventual findings. By the end of the statutory procedure the Council accepted it had failed to provide Mr X with an opportunity to submit evidence to its stage two investigation. It acted on the stage three recommendations and provided Mr X with a further opportunity to submit evidence. I have also reviewed Mr X’s evidence and am satisfied with the Council’s conclusions. While the language used by its social worker was unhelpful and unprofessional, the Council accepted this and agreed to learn from it.
30. Mr X continues to raise issues with the Council’s handling of his concerns and his complaint. I am satisfied the Council has investigated matters thoroughly and properly through the children’s statutory process and acted on the stage two and stage three recommendations. It has apologised to Mr X and paid him £300 to recognise the impact of its failings. I am satisfied this is a suitable remedy.

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Action

31. Within one month of the final decision the Council has agreed to apologise to Mr X for the uncertainty caused by delay considering his complaint. 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 I have recommended.
32. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Decision

33. I find fault causing injustice which the Council has agreed to remedy

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman