Summary: We uphold Ms X’s complaint, that the Council failed to consider her complaint within its children statutory complaints’ procedure. The Council has agreed to complete its stage two without further delay.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I will call Ms X, says she complained to the Council in March 2022 about children services’ actions.

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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. Under our information sharing agreement, we will share the final decision with the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted).

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

The statutory complaints’ procedure

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.
8. The first stage of the procedure is local resolution. Councils have up to 20 working days to respond.
9. 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 investigator and an independent person who is responsible for overseeing the investigation. Councils have up to 13 weeks to complete stage two of the process from the date of request.
10. 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. The Council must hold the panel within 30 days of the date of request, and then issue a final response within 20 days of the panel hearing.

What happened

11. Ms X complained to the Council in March 2022 about children services’ actions. Ms X has a Special Guardianship Order and had requested support for the needs of child she cared for. The Council considered the complaint under stage one of its corporate complaints’ procedure and issued its response in March 2022.
12. Ms X’s complaint is about issues which fall within the Children Act statutory complaints’ procedure. We are likely to decide that not using this procedure is fault.

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Agreed action

13. The Council has agreed within 65 working days of my final decision to:
• Complete a stage two investigation and write to Ms X to inform her of the outcome, ensuring it provides her appropriate information about her rights under the process.

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Final decision

14. I uphold this complaint with a finding of fault causing an injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman