Summary: Mrs B complained about decisions the Council made in respect of social care services for her children. She also complained that the Council had not responded to her complaints since 2021. We found the Council delayed in responding to Mrs B’s complaints at stage one, but Mrs B did not take up the Council’s offer of a stage two investigation in May 2022 if she remained unhappy.

The complaint

1. Mrs B complained that Blackburn with Darwen Council (the Council) failed to:
• provide services to her disabled children since they moved to the area in 2021; and
• to deal with Mrs B’s complaints about children’s social care services, through the statutory complaints procedure in a timely manner.
2. This has caused Mrs B distress, frustration and uncertainty as to whether her children missed out on support.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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 significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
4. If we are satisfied with an organisation’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 and the documents provided by the complainant, made enquiries of the Council and considered the comments and documents the Council provided. Mrs B and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.
6. 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

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. We also published practitioner guidance on the procedures, setting out our expectations.
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 investigating officer (IO) to look into the complaint and an independent person (IP) who is responsible for overseeing the investigation and ensuring its independence.

What happened

10. Mrs B moved to the Council’s area in March 2021. She has two children with additional needs. In their previous area both children received a short breaks package of care involving three hours a week during term-time and eight hours a week during the holidays. They both had Education Health and Care (EHC) plans at different stages including this provision.
11. In September 2021 the Council completed an assessment process of the children’s needs. It concluded one child could access community activities alongside six hours a week of support during the holidays and the other child could access universal services so it closed her case.
12. In October 2021 Mrs B asked how she could appeal the Panel decision to reduce the short breaks package and asked about the complaints procedure. In Late October 2021 she made a complaint about the reduction in care. She received an acknowledgement from the Council but no response. She made another complaint in November 2021 about the same issues and received another acknowledgement but no response.
13. On 18 February 2022 Mrs B complained to us (first complaint to us) and her MP about the Council’s failure to respond to her complaints, the reduction in the care package, and the assessment process. We advised Mrs B to complain to the Council first and we forwarded the complaint to the Council. The Council did not forward the complaint to the children’s disability team and did not respond to it.
14. On 11 March 2022 Mrs B complained again to us about the Council’s failure to respond to her complaints in October and November 2021 (second complaint to us). A few days later she also made a further complaint to the Council about the conduct of an officer at an event she attended.
15. On 17 March 2022 Mrs B’s MP forwarded the complaint he had received in February 2022 to the Council asking it to respond as we had said the Council needed to deal with it first.
16. On 31 March 2022 the Council responded to the complaint made on 18 February 2022 and which we had referred back to the Council. It sent the response directly to Mrs B. It said:
• The complaint emails sent in October and November 2021 had not been received by the children’s disability team. It was possible Mrs B had sent them to a generic customer services team but they had not been forwarded to the feedback team. The Council accepted and apologised for not forwarding the complaints to the children’s disability team following our contact in February 2022.
• The social worker had given feedback about the assessment over the telephone on 20 September 2021 and discussed the short breaks provision. The Council agreed to now send Mrs B a copy of the assessment.
• There was no appeal against service decisions and the decision had not been made by a panel. It said the time for discussion was when the assessment was shared. It accepted the assessment had not been properly shared and apologised this had not happened previously.
• The Council offered to match the previous short breaks provision for both children of three hours a week during term-time and eight hours during the holidays.
17. On 22 April 2022 The Council responded to Mrs B’s MP. It repeated the explanation regarding the original complaints sent in October and November 2021 and responded to the complaint about the member of staff. It apologised for any unintentional offence they had caused and offered a meeting with the member of staff or their manager.
18. On 12 May 2022 we referred the second complaint Mrs B had made to us, back to the Council as premature. On receipt of this complaint the Council sent an email to Mrs B on 18 May 2022 offering to carry out a stage two investigation. It asked for details of her stage two complaint and the reasons why she was dissatisfied with the stage one response. Mrs B did not reply.
19. On 27 May 2022 the Council sent Mrs B details of the Investigating Officer and the Independent Person it had appointed. It asked for confirmation that Mrs B was happy with this approach.
20. On 8 June 2022 Mrs B said she was had a lot going on and would reply once she had reviewed the emails.
21. In the meantime, the Council had completed another child and families assessment and increased the support package to five hours a week during term-time and eight during the holidays.
22. In September 2022 Mrs B made a complaint to the Council about different issues but also referred to social care matters including the loss of the care package the previous year. The Council responded in October 2022. It said it was matching the care package provided by the previous Council. It recognised Mrs B wanted more hours but said she had rejected a different type of provision. It said during the period when the care package had been reduced the children had access to a variety of universal services and they were offered overnight short breaks, but Mrs B declined. It also explained that it had offered Mrs B the opportunity to escalate her complaint to stage two in May 2022, but Mrs B had not agreed due to other pressures at the time.
23. The Council carried out two further child and family assessments in November 2022 and August 2023 primarily in connection with the EHC Plans and a subsequent appeal to the SEND Tribunal. Mrs B also made a further complaint in January 2023 about the Council not funding activities for the children and in August 2023 Mrs B challenged the Council’s submission to the SEND Tribunal as inaccurate. She made another complaint in September 2023 about the assessments. The Council said there was an ongoing SEND tribunal appeal, the child had support via a personal assistant which would be reviewed through the EHC process and his case was closed to social care.
24. In March 2024 the SEND Tribunal concluded that the Council had not carried out a social care assessment in respect of one child under the Chronically Sick and Disabled Person’s Act 1970 to identify specific needs as a disabled child. Instead, it had done child and family assessments under the Children’s Act 1989. As part of its decision the Tribunal recommended the Council carry out the correct assessment now and the Council accepted that recommendation.

Analysis

25. The Council delayed for five months in 2021/22 in responding to Mrs B’s complaint at stage one of the statutory complaints procedure. It says the complaint emails Mrs B sent were not sent to the correct address. However, she received two acknowledgements from the Council with reference numbers and it was reasonable for her to conclude the Council had received them. This was fault.
26. The Council further delayed once we referred the complaint back to the Council in February 2022 and only responded on 31 March 2022. But the response dealt with each point of Mrs B’s complaint and agreed to reinstate the short breaks packages to their original level. The Council also sent a second stage one response to Mrs B’s MP which dealt with the complaint about an officer’s conduct at an event Mrs B attended. So, by 31 March 2022 the Council had responded fully to Mrs B’s complaints. The response included an apology for the delay, which I consider was sufficient action to put right the injustice caused by the delay.
27. Following a further intervention from us in May 2022, in response to the second complaint Mrs B had made to us in March 2022, the Council promptly offered to start a stage two investigation, appointing a stage two investigating officer and independent person. Mrs B declined to take up this offer due to other pressures in her life.
28. I understand Mrs B may not have felt able to continue at that point, but it was her opportunity to pursue her complaint further if she wished to address the gap in the short breaks package prior to March 2022 and I consider this was a reasonable course of action for her to pursue. I do not consider it was due to fault by the Council that the stage two investigation did not progress at this point.
29. Mrs B has since raised a number of other complaints about the EHC Plan process and a disabled facilities grant. As part of one of these complaints in October 2022 the Council responded to her point about the gap in the short breaks package. This was another opportunity for her to ask for a stage two investigation if she disagreed with that issue, but she did not do so. I do not consider it is reasonable to now go back to events from over two years ago when these earlier opportunities were not taken up.
30. I have also taken into account the fact that the SEND Tribunal has recently considered the social care assessments and the Council has accepted the Tribunal recommendation that they should carry out a new assessment of one child under a different piece of legislation. Mrs B can make a new complaint if she is unhappy with the outcome of this assessment.

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Final decision

31. I have completed my investigation into this complaint as the apology given by the Council in March 2022 was sufficient for the delay at that point and I am unable to find fault causing injustice in the actions of the Council after that date towards Mrs B.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman