Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about delay in the Council dealing with his stage two complaint under the statutory children’s complaint procedure. This is because the Council has agreed to resolve the complaint early by providing a proportionate remedy for the injustice caused to Mr X.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains about delay in the Council dealing with his stage two complaint under the statutory children’s complaint 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 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)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. The Children Act 1989 sets out a three-stage procedure for councils to follow when looking at complaints about children’s social care services. We call this the “children’s statutory complaints procedure”.
6. The first stage of the procedure is local resolution. The council has a maximum of 20 working days to respond. If a complainant is not happy with a council’s stage one response, they can ask it to consider it at stage two. Councils have up to 65 working days to complete stage two, including the adjudication, from the date of request.
7. If we were to investigate, it is likely we would find fault causing Mr X an injustice because the Council did not complete stage two of the children’s statutory complaints procedure within the required timescales.
8. Mr X first requested to escalate to stage two in November 2023. This means the Council should have complete stage two by February 2024. The Council sent its adjudication response at the end of July 2024. Therefore, there has been a delay of five months. I am satisfied this delay will have caused Mr X distress and frustration.
9. We therefore asked the Council to consider remedying this by:
• Apologising to Mr X for the delay in dealing with his complaint at stage two.
• Make a payment of £50 for each month of delay. A total of £250.

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Agreed action

10. To its credit, the Council agreed to resolve the complaint and will complete the above within four weeks of the final decision to put things right.

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Final decision

11. We have upheld this complaint because the Council has agreed to resolve the complaint early by providing a proportionate remedy for the injustice caused to Mr X.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman