Summary: We uphold Mrs X’s complaint the Council has failed to comply with the Children Act statutory complaints’ procedure. The Council has now agreed to do so.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Mrs X’s, says the Council has failed to comply with its Children Act 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 Mrs X and the Council.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

The statutory complaints’ procedure

6. 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.
7. The first stage of the procedure is local resolution. Councils have up to 20 working days to respond.
8. 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.
9. 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

10. Mrs X complained to the Council about a child in need assessment accuracy and resulting child in need plan which she says was unnecessary because of inaccurate reports. The Council replied to her complaint within the Children Act statutory complaints’ procedure. Its stage two response was sent in January 2022.
11. Mrs X requested an escalation to stage three which the Council acknowledged in April 2022. It then apologised for delaying in contacting her and had email correspondence with her in May, June and July. Mrs X said she could not provide any available dates over the summer. Mrs X contacted the Council again in early September 2022 and requested stage three dates. The Council offered a date in October but Mrs X did not reply to the Council’s emails. Mrs X has told us this was due to her mental health at that time. The Council said it would be back in contact but it hasn’t.
12. If we were to investigate it is likely we would find fault causing the complainant injustice because there have been some delays in arranging the stage three and the Council has not contacted Mrs X again since early October 2022.

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Agreed action

13. The Council has agreed to:
• Offer one more stage three date to Mrs X.

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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