Summary: Mr X complained the Council has failed to provide his son, F, with social care support following his discharge from psychiatric hospital in July 2019. The Council failed to investigate Mr X’s complaint under the statutory children’s complaints procedure. This caused Mr X uncertainty about whether the outcome may have been different. The Council agreed to arrange and start a stage 2 investigation under the statutory children’s complaints procedure within one month of the final decision. It also agreed to make a symbolic time and trouble payment to Mr X and review its complaints policy.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained the Council delayed and then carried out a flawed assessment of his son, F’s, needs following his discharge from a psychiatric hospital in July 2019. As a result, Mr X said F and the wider family are without any formal social care support. Mr X said the Council’s actions have left the family feeling isolated and unsupported.

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What I have investigated

2. I have investigated whether the Council properly considered Mr X’s complaint. I have not investigated the substantive matters for the reasons given in paragraph 28.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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)
4. 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)
5. Under the information sharing agreement between the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman and the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted), we will share this decision with Ofsted.

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How I considered this complaint

6. I spoke to Mr X about his complaint.
7. I considered the Council’s response to Mr X’s complaint.
8. Mr X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments before I made a final decision.

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What I found

Statutory Complaints Procedure

9. The Children Act 1989 and statutory guidance ‘Getting the Best from Complaints’ outlines a statutory complaints process which councils must follow for certain complaints about children’s services.
10. The statutory complaints process has three stages:
• local resolution by the Council (Stage 1);
• an investigation by an investigator who will prepare a detailed report and findings (Stage 2). The Council then issues an adjudication letter which sets out its response to the findings; and, if the person making the complaint asks;
• an independent panel to consider their representations (Stage 3).
11. Regulations set out the timescales for the procedure. The Council should provide a response at Stage 1 within 10 working days and at Stage 2 within 25 working days (or exceptionally within 65 working days if the complaint is complex). The Council should call a review panel at Stage 3 within 30 working days.
12. When the Council has investigated a complaint without fault under the statutory complaints procedure, the Ombudsman would not normally re-investigate it. However, we may consider whether a council has properly considered the findings and recommendations of the investigator and review panel, and any remedy the Council offers.
13. The statutory guidance gives examples of complaints which must be considered under the statutory children’s complaints process, including:
• An unwelcome or disputed decision
• Delay in decision making or provision of services
• Delivery or non-delivery of services including complaints procedures.
• Attitude of behaviour of staff
• Application of eligibility and assessment criteria
• The impact on a child or young person of the application of a local authority policy; and
• Assessment, care management and review.

The Councils’ corporate complaints policy

14. The Council’s corporate complaints policy says there is a separate procedure for complaints about children’s social services. It says someone can use the separate procedure if they are a customer of children’s social services and they wish to make a complaint about the service that they or the person they care for has received.

What happened

15. In 2019 Mr X’s son, F, was admitted to a psychiatric hospital under parental consent. In July 2019 F was discharged from the hospital. Mr X referred F to the Council for an assessment by children’s services.
16. In late 2019 Mr X contacted the Council because nobody had contacted him to progress F’s referral. The Council wrote to Mr X and acknowledged it had received his referral in July. It apologised F had not had his needs assessed. The Council started progressing the referral in November 2019. It concluded following assessment that there was no role for social worker involvement with F or the wider family. The Council said it would refer F's sibling, G, for early help support.
17. In February 2020 Mr X formally complained to the Council about the assessments it had carried out with F. He complained the Council had failed to meet the statutory timescales and the social worker had failed to consider the whole family’s views. He said the assessment also contained a number of errors and did not take into account the fact F had recently been discharged from a secure psychiatric unit. Mr X said F and the wider family had received no further support since social workers visited in December 2019. Mr X said despite F having a significant disability and illness the Council had failed to identify him as a disabled child which he said was discrimination. Mr X said the Council’s failings meant F and the wider family were not receiving support he believed they were entitled to.
18. The Council responded to Mr X in April 2020 at stage 1 of its corporate complaints process. The Council apologised for missing the timescale to complete F’s assessment when it said it received the referral in November 2019. It further apologised for failing to record the assessment as a formal Child and Family Assessment and for a lack of communication and consultation around the assessment. It also acknowledged and apologised that it had failed to provide early help support for G, as agreed.
19. Mr X asked the Council to escalate his complaint to stage 2. The Council wrote to Mr X in April 2020. It said because of COVID-19 the Council was assessing each complaint to decide what it could reasonably achieve by progressing it to the next stage. It told Mr X that it would not progress his complaint to stage 2 as it had already addressed his points as far as it could.
20. Mr X remained unhappy and in November 2020 he complained to us. He said the Council had failed to carry out an effective assessment of F’s needs. Mr X said this meant F and the wider family had received no direct support since F’s discharge from the hospital in July 2019.

My findings

21. Mr X’s complaint to the Council was about delay and non-delivery of social care services for F who was released from a psychiatric hospital in July 2019. Mr X was unhappy with the outcome of F’s assessment and the application by the Council of its eligibility and assessment criteria for support from children’s social services. Mr X’s concerns fit in with the ‘Getting the best from complaints’ statutory guidance. The law is clear that complaints such as this should be dealt with through the statutory procedure. Not doing so was fault and meant the Council did not handle Mr X’s complaint correctly.
22. The Council’s complaints policy on whether it deals with complaints under the statutory procedure is restrictive. Its policy restricts the statutory procedure to those that are already a ‘customer’ of social services. This is narrower than the statutory guidance outlines and is fault.
23. I have considered whether we should investigate Mr X’s substantive complaint. However, I have decided the Council should conduct a stage 2 investigation in line with its statutory duty. This is because:
• The Council’s stage 1 response was flawed. It said it used the date of Mr X’s referral as November 2019 when in fact the Council received the referral in July 2019.
• The Council did not properly consider the injustice its acknowledged faults have caused F and the wider family.
• Mr X was not afforded the independent oversight which the statutory procedure would provide.
• Mr X says F is still without any support from children’s services, 18 months after his discharge from hospital. This ongoing injustice warrants investigation under the statutory procedure.

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Agreed actions

24. The Council agreed within one month of the final decision to:
• arrange and start a stage 2 investigation into Mr X’s complaints under the statutory children’s complaints procedure.
• apologise to Mr X and pay him £150 to acknowledge the avoidable uncertainty and time and trouble caused to him by failing to investigate his complaint under the statutory children’s complaints procedure.
25. The Council agreed within three months of the final decision review its complaints procedure to ensure it complies with statutory guidance regarding who is eligible to have their complaint considered under the statutory children’s complaints procedure.

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Final decision

26. I have completed my investigation. I found fault and the Council agreed to my recommendations to remedy the injustice the fault caused.

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Parts of the complaint that I did not investigate

27. I did not investigate the substantive matters Mr X complained about because the Council has not yet properly considered them. If Mr X remains unhappy at the conclusion of the statutory procedure he can, within 12 months of the Council’s final response, complain again to us.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman