Summary: The Council has now agreed to put Mr J’s complaint about failure to provide post-adoption support through the statutory procedure for complaints about children’s services. So the Ombudsman should not consider the matter further at this stage.

The complaint

1. Mr J complains the Council did not provide support
• When an adoption placement was at risk of breakdown
• In accordance with an agreement made when his son, S, returned to Council care.

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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 a council 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 have considered information provided by Mr J with his complaint, and information provided by the Council about the progress of the complaint through the complaints procedure.

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What I found

4. Mr J complained to the Council about events around the departure of S from the family home. The Council said it would not pursue the complaint because S had not consented to Mr J making the complaint.
5. The law sets out a procedure for considering complaints about children’s services. It does not cover all children’s services, but it does cover adoption support services and care of a looked-after child. So this procedure applied in this case.
6. Mr J was not happy with the Council’s response to his complaint and asked the Council to consider the complaint at the next stage. The complaints procedure guidance, Getting the Best from Complaints, is clear that where a complaint is accepted at stage 1, the Council is obliged to ensure the complaint proceeds to stage 2, if that is the complainant’s wish.
7. The Council refused to take Mr J’s complaint to stage 2. The Council said this was because it did not have S’s consent, and it could not achieve Mr J’s desired outcomes. Mr J disputes that he specified any desired outcomes, but in any case this is not a reason not to investigate a complaint.
8. More important is the issue of consent. In 2019 we reported on a case where a council had wrongly refused to investigate a parent’s complaint because it did not have the consent of the young person involved. The situation here is similar. The Council may have to take extra care around sharing S’s personal information. But Mr J and his family have been affected in their own right by the Council’s actions and are entitled to complain about this.
9. I wrote to the Council to explain this, and the Council has now agreed to take Mr J’s complaint through this procedure, It is usually in everybody’s best interests for a complaint to complete the statutory procedure before we consider it, so there is nothing more we can achieve at this stage. Mr J can contact us again if he remains unhappy after stage 3 of the procedure.

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Agreed action

10. The Council has agreed to take Mr J’s complaint through the statutory procedure for complaints about children’s services, starting at stage 2.

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Final decision

11. The Ombudsman should not investigate this complaint, because the Council has agreed to take satisfactory action towards resolving it.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman