Summary: The Council is at fault for delaying consideration of this complaint under the children’s statutory complaints procedure. The Council has agreed to make a payment to the complainant for the time and trouble its delay has caused.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I will call Mrs X, complains that the Council failed to provide respite care for her daughter. Mrs X complained to the Ombudsman that the Council delayed issuing a response to her complaint under the statutory complaints procedure.

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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 the complainant and the Council.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
6. The complainant has had an opportunity to comment on my draft 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. Mrs X complained to the Council that it had failed to provide respite care for her daughter. The Council considered the complaint at stages one and two if the statutory complaints procedure. In early March 2022, Mrs X asked the Council to progress her complaint to stage three of the procedure.
12. The Council says there were difficulties arranging the panel because of staff being absent, issues with a new complaints system and availability of panel members. A panel has now been convened for late June.

Analysis

13. The Council should have arranged a stage three panel for early April. Its failure to do so is fault which has caused Mrs X a delay in receiving answers to questions that she raised and has caused her frustration by the delay.

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Agreed action

14. The Council has agreed that within one month of the date of my final decision, it will offer to make a payment of £100 to Mrs X to remedy the time and trouble she has gone to pursuing her complaint and to reflect the delay in the Council dealing with it.

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Final decision

15. We uphold this complaint with a finding of fault causing an injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman