Summary: Miss X complains about support provided to her adult son while he was in the Council’s care. The Council considered her complaint under the statutory children’s complaints procedure at stage one but then refused to progress it to stage two. This was fault causing injustice, which the Council has agreed to remedy through the actions set out at the end of this statement.

The complaint

1. Miss X complains on behalf of her son, Mr Y, a young adult previously cared for by the Council. She says the Council failed to apply for a passport for Mr Y and did not provide Mr Y with housing, mental health, or rehabilitation support.

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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)

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How I considered this complaint

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

What should happen

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. 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.
9. The LGSCO’s practitioner guidance says:
• Once a complaint has entered stage one, councils must ensure the complaint continues to stages two and three if the complainant wishes. This is because the decision to progress a complaint from stage one to stage two lies with the complainant, not the Council.
• Neither the regulations nor the guidance allows a council to refuse a stage two complaint because the council thinks there is no substance to the complaint.
• Councils have discretion to accept a complaint made late if it was not reasonable for the person to have complained at the time and where it is still possible to carry out an investigation. Councils should generally accept a late complaint unless there is good reason not to.
• If a person raises issues within the stage two complaint statement which fall outside the procedure such as historic issues, they should still be allowed to include these. It is for the IO to decide whether they can and will investigate those issues.

What happened

10. Miss X submitted a complaint to the Council in May 2025 about multiple aspects of support provided to her adult son, including responsibility for his British passport application, lack of permanent accommodation, mental health support, substance misuse services and safeguarding concerns. The Council responded to her complaint on 30 June 2025 and confirmed: “Your complaint is being dealt with under the Children Act Complaints procedures.”
11. The Council addressed five complaint points. It did not uphold any element of the complaint. In relation to the passport issue, the Council concluded that Miss X had agreed to take the lead in 2019 and that the matter was therefore not the Council’s responsibility. Other complaints about accommodation, support services and safeguarding were also not upheld.
12. Miss X responded to the stage one outcome, disputing the findings on the passport issue and formally requesting escalation to stage two of the statutory complaints procedure.
13. The Council wrote to Miss X on 27 August 2025 refusing to progress the complaint to stage two. It stated that the passport issue was not court‑ordered, relied on 2019 case records, and said some matters were historic or had not been raised in the stage one complaint. The Council also referred to its local 12‑month complaints policy and signposted Miss X to the Ombudsman.

Findings

14. 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. This independence is not available to complaints put through the corporate complaints procedure. Because of this, we expect people to complete the complaints procedure before we will consider whether there were any flaws in how the Council investigated their concerns. I have therefore not investigated Miss X’s complaints about Mr Y.
15. The Council accepted Miss X’s representations as a statutory children’s social care complaint and considered them at stage one under the Children Act 1989 complaints procedure. Once a council has accepted a complaint under this statutory scheme, the complainant has a right to progress to stage two if they are dissatisfied with the stage one response.
16. Statutory guidance is clear that progression to stage two is not discretionary and councils must not refuse escalation based on local time‑limit policies, or a view that matters were insufficiently raised at stage one.
17. By refusing to progress the complaint to stage two after completing stage one and being notified of continuing dissatisfaction, the Council did not act in line with the Children Act 1989 statutory complaints procedure. This was fault which caused injustice.
18. To remedy this, the Council will ensure Miss X’s complaint is progressed to stage two and appoint an Independent IO and IP in line with statutory requirements. It will also make a symbolic payment in recognition of the time and trouble caused by the delay.

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Action

19. To remedy the fault identified, the Council will immediately progress the complaint to stage two of the Children Act 1989 statutory complaints procedure. This includes appointing an Investigating Officer and an Independent Person and commencing a stage two investigation in line with the statutory process and timescales.
20. The Council will also make a symbolic payment of £250 in recognition of the significant time and trouble caused by the fault in its handling of Miss X’s complaint. This approach is in line with our Remedies Guidance.
21. The Council will provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Decision

22. I find fault causing injustice. The Council has agreed to complete the recommended actions to remedy injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman