Summary: We upheld Miss B’s complaint about how the Council handled her complaint about children’s social care. The Council took 66 weeks longer than it should have to respond to her complaint. This caused frustration and uncertainty for Miss B. To remedy the injustice caused, the Council agreed to explain to Miss B what service improvements it has made, make a payment to recognise the impact of the faults identified, and arrange more training for staff.

The complaint

1. Dr C complains on behalf of Miss B about the way the Council has handled her complaint about children’s social care. She says the Council took too long to complete its stage two investigation and did not communicate with her about the delay. Miss B feels let down. She would like the Council to explain how it will improve services and provide an explanation of how it calculated the remedy offered.

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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 an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
3. We may investigate matters coming to our attention during an investigation, if we consider that a member of the public who has not complained may have suffered an injustice as a result. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26D and 34E, 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)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I have considered the complaint made by Miss B and the documents Dr C provided.
6. I considered the Council’s comments about the complaint and the documents it provided in response to my enquiries.
7. I took account of the Ombudsman’s focus report ‘Are we getting the best from children’s social care complaints?’ published in March 2015.
8. Dr C, Miss B and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.
9. 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

Legislation and guidance

10. The Children Act 1989 Representations Procedure (England) Regulation 2006 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.
11. The guidance says who can complain and what they can complain about. This includes disputed decisions, the attitude or behaviour of staff, and assessment, care management and review.
12. A young person can complain through an advocate. The role of an advocate is to support a young person making a complaint through every stage of the complaint procedure and provide them with information about their rights and options.
13. The guidance says councils must appoint a complaints manager to carry out certain functions including arranging for a full and considered investigation of the complaint to take place without delay.
14. The regulations place a duty on councils to act swiftly to ensure they deal with complaints as quickly as possible. The first stage of the procedure is local resolution. Councils have up to 20 working days to respond.
15. If a complainant is not happy with a council’s stage one response, they can ask the council to consider it at stage two. The guidance says once a council has accepted a complaint at stage one, it must ensure the complaint continues to stage two and three if that is the complainant’s wish.
16. The guidance says stage two begins when the complainant requests it. If the complaint has been made orally, the Council must ensure the details of the complaint and desired outcomes are recorded in writing and agreed with the complainant.
17. At stage two of the procedure, councils appoint an investigating officer and an independent person who oversees the investigation. Once the investigating officer has completed their investigation, a senior officer at the council should act as adjudicating officer. They should consider the complaints, the findings, conclusions and recommendations, and the complainant’s desired outcomes.
18. The guidance says the investigating officer’s duties include identifying solutions and recommending courses of action to resolve problems. The adjudicating officer’s role, according to the guidance, includes:
• confirming the council’s response to the stage two reports;
• stating any actions the council will take and their timescale for implementation; and
• confirming the complainant’s right to seek a stage three review panel.
19. The legislation and guidance say the council must complete this stage, including its adjudication on the findings, within 25 working days. Where the council cannot complete the investigation in 25 working days, it may extend the investigation to a maximum of 65 working days. The council should write to the complainant as soon as possible giving reasons for the delay and the date by which they should receive a response.
20. 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.
21. The guidance says councils can “remedy injustice arising from maladministration.” Any remedy should be proportionate to the injustice and put the complainant back in the position they would have been in except for the fault. Where this is not possible the council should consider financial compensation.
22. A complainant can approach the Ombudsman at any time and the Ombudsman may exercise his discretion to investigate before the complaint has completed all three stages.
23. In the focus report referred to in paragraph 7, the Ombudsman found common issues included failure by councils to recognise children’s services complaints and unnecessary delays in the process. The report offers advice to councils about good practice in handling complaints about children’s social care.

What happened

24. Miss B was a child in care. In 2016, she complained to the Council about children’s services, with the support of her advocate Dr C.
25. The Ombudsman has previously found fault with the Council’s refusal to investigate Miss B’s complaint at stage two. In June 2018, the Council agreed with the Ombudsman’s recommendation to begin a stage two investigation within four weeks using a letter Dr C wrote in September 2017 as the complaint. I have investigated the Council’s actions since that decision.
26. The Council appointed an investigating officer and independent person in September 2018. The investigating officer and independent person met with Miss B and her advocate in October. Miss B complained about the service she received from her social worker. She also complained about unplanned placement moves and not being able to see her brother.
27. In November, the investigating officer identified a former employee she wished to interview as part of her investigation. There were difficulties arranging the interview. The Council contacted the employee to ask about his availability and to share some documents with him. The investigating officer provided a list of interview questions in advance. Due to the delay arranging the interview, the Council had to approach the Director of Children’s Services in the council where the employee now worked to secure his involvement in the investigation. The interview eventually took place in March 2019. The Council tried to find other employees who had worked with Miss B but they were either retired, had emigrated or could not be contacted.
28. The investigating officer completed her report in May 2019. She upheld most of Miss B’s complaints. She found the Council failed to;
1. properly consider Miss B’s request for a new social worker;
2. provide suitably experienced foster placements that could meet her needs;
3. arrange contact with her brother for a year;
4. involve Dr C in meetings where Miss B needed support; and
5. plan some of Miss B’s placement moves.
29. However, the investigating officer did not make any recommendations to the Council about what it should do to put these matters right or to improve services. The investigating officer was critical of the Council’s complaints handling and made some recommendations about this. The independent person’s report supported the investigating officer’s findings. He recommended the Council apologise to Miss B for the complaints which were upheld and offer a remedy for the time and trouble taken by Miss B to raise her complaint.
30. The Council asked the investigating officer to complete an addendum report as it was unhappy with her findings about its complaint handling. She provided her addendum report to the Council in early June 2019. The investigating officer declined to change her findings.
31. At the end of June, the Council told Dr C there was no timescale for completing the adjudication report and it would let her know when it could provide an update.
32. Dr C complained to the Ombudsman on behalf of Miss B in December. Given the lengthy delay in completing the stage two investigation the Ombudsman decided to investigate the complaint.
33. The Council issued its adjudication and the accompanying reports in January 2020. It said the delay was due to the senior officer having to familiarise themselves with the case and seek input from present and former colleagues. It said the concerns raised by the investigating officer about the complaint handling also required further consideration.
34. The adjudicating officer’s report provided a response to each complaint that was upheld in full or part, and the concerns raised about the Council’s complaint handling. The report also apologised to Miss B for when the service the Council provided was unsatisfactory and left her feeling unsupported and not listened to. It did not respond to her desired outcomes. The report said the Council had undergone significant changes and improvements since the events complained about. It offered a payment of £500 to remedy the complaint.
35. In an email which accompanied the stage two reports, the Council told Dr C it was sorry for the time taken to conclude the complaint. It said the £500 payment was “appreciably higher than might be expected solely on the basis of those complaints which were upheld” and was intended to reflect the time taken to resolve the complaint. The Council advised Dr C of Miss B’s right to have her complaint considered by a stage three review panel.
36. In response to my enquiries, the Council said it receives “half a dozen” complaints about children’s social care each year. As a result, its case management system does not support the process of investigating statutory complaints at stage two and three. The Council said it would upgrade its system to incorporate this process and prevent similar delays in the future.

Analysis

37. The Council should have begun the investigation by mid-July 2018 and completed it within 65 working days (13 weeks). It took 79 weeks. This is fault.
38. As soon as it became clear there would be delays in arranging the interview with the former employee which risked taking the complaint beyond its statutory deadline, the Council should have escalated the matter to senior officers. It took four months to arrange the interview which contributed to the delay and was fault.
39. There is no evidence the Council told Dr C about the delays or the need for an extension before the deadline for responding to the complaint had passed. This is not in line with the guidance and was fault.
40. The Council was wrong to say there is no timescale in the guidance for issuing its adjudicating officer’s report. The law and guidance are clear the Council must complete stage two, including the adjudication, within 65 working days. The Council took more than seven months to complete its adjudication after the investigating officer had completed her report. This is fault.
41. Neither the stage two investigating officer’s report nor the Council’s adjudication make any recommendations about social work practice in response to the faults identified. The concerns about the complaint handling in this case have been allowed to overshadow Miss B’s complaint about the service she received when she was a child in care. This is fault.
42. I accept the events complained about happened some time ago and the Council has undergone significant changes since then. However, the lack of specific recommendations to address the faults in social work practice in her case offers no reassurance to Miss B that the Council has learned lessons from her experience. The Council has also not offered any remedy for the injustice it agrees it caused to Miss B by the faults identified at stage two. I disagree with the Council’s view the payment it offered is higher than the faults identified warrant. The payment offered by the Council remedies the delay in the complaint procedure but does not address the avoidable distress caused to Miss B by the Council’s unplanned placement moves and it not supporting her to see her brother. This leaves these significant injustices unresolved for Miss B and is fault.
43. I am concerned by the Council’s report of low numbers of statutory complaints about children’s social care services. This suggests the Council may not be correctly identifying complaints which it should investigate in line with the statutory complaints procedure. It may have deprived other people of access to stage two and three of the process.

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Agreed actions

44. Within four weeks of the final decision, to remedy the injustice caused, the Council will:
• write to Miss B to explain how procedures and services have changed since the events she complained about.
• pay Miss B the £500 it offered her in response to the stage two investigation in recognition of the delays in its complaint handling.
• make a further payment of £750 to Miss B to recognise the impact of the faults in social work practice identified in the stage two investigation. In recommending this, I have considered the Ombudsman’s Guidance on Remedies. We aim to put the person who has suffered an injustice back in the position they would have been in, but for the fault. Where that is not possible, we suggest a financial sum instead to recognise the injustice. This is not compensation. Compensation is a matter for a court which awards sums differently. Where we find injustice has been significant or prolonged, we may recommend a higher sum. In this case, the injustice to Miss B was significant. This payment reflects the impact of the faults listed in paragraph 28.
• These payments will be made into a managed account for Miss B.
45. Within three months of the final decision, the Council will arrange for officers handling complaints about children’s social care to receive training in the statutory complaints process.
46. Once officers have undergone training, the Council will review all complaints about children’s services received in the previous 12 months. It will consider whether it has correctly identified those which should be investigated under the statutory complaints procedure. If the Council decides it has investigated complaints under the wrong procedure, it will consider offering an independent investigation to any complainants who remain dissatisfied. It will report the findings from its review and any resulting actions to the Ombudsman.

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Final decision

47. I uphold this complaint. Miss B has been caused an injustice by the actions of the Council and it has agreed to take action to remedy that injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman