Summary: We will not investigate Mr X and Ms Y's complaint about children services assessment of their family’s needs. It is reasonable to have expected them to have requested an internal review of the Council’s complaint response.

The complaint

1. The complainants, whom I shall call Mr X and Ms Y, say the Council failed to properly assess their children’s needs and failed to provide the support they needed.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide it would be reasonable for the person to have asked for a council review or appeal. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by Mr X and Ms Y and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
5. I considered the comments of Mr X and Ms Y’s representative on a draft version of this decision.

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My assessment

6. In September 2020, Mr X and Ms Y complained to the Council about the way the Council’s children services team had assessed their family’s needs.
7. The law sets out a three stage procedure for councils to follow when looking at complaints about certain children’s social care services. At stage two of this procedure, the Council appoints an Investigating Officer and an Independent Person (who is responsible for overseeing the investigation). If a complainant is unhappy with the outcome of the stage two investigation, they can ask for a stage three review. If a council has investigated something under this procedure, we would not normally re-investigate it unless we consider that investigation was flawed. However, we may look at whether a council properly considered the findings and recommendations of the independent investigation.
8. The Council provided Mr X and Ms Y its stage two reports in mid April 2021. A few weeks later, it gave them its response to those reports. This is called an adjudication letter. In that letter it offered a remedy. It wrote to Ms Y in later May to explain if they remained unhappy they could ask for a stage three review.
9. The Council says Mr X and Ms Y did not ask for a stage three review. It says they accepted the remedy offered. Their representative says they did not understand the process. Their representative was already representing them at that time.
10. We normally would not investigate a children social care complaint, which qualifies for the statutory complaints’ scheme, if the complainant had the chance to request the internal stage three review and did not do so. There are no good reasons why this should not apply here.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because it is reasonable to have expected Mr X and Ms Y to have requested an internal stage three review.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman