Summary: Mrs X complained that the Council did not meet statutory timescales or keep her updated when handling her complaint about its children’s social care services. We find the Council at fault for delays and not providing adequate updates which caused distress uncertainty and frustration. The Council agreed to apologise and make a symbolic payment to remedy the injustice.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complains about the Council’s handling of a complaint she made about its children’s social services department on 15 October 2024 that is being partly dealt with under the children’s statutory complaints procedure. In particular she complains the Council failed to:
1. meet the statutory complaint procedure timescales.
2. provide updates about the progress of her complaint.
2. She says the delays and lack of update have caused significant anxiety and would like the Council to assign an investigating officer and independent person and comply with the statutory timescales.

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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)
5. 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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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered evidence provided by Mrs X and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
7. Mrs X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments before making a final decision.

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What I found

The statutory complaints process

8. 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.
9. The first stage of the procedure is local resolution. Councils have up to 20 working days to respond.
10. 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.
11. The whole stage two process should be completed within 25 working days but guidance allows an extension for up to 65 working days where required.
12. 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 working days of the date of request, and then issue a final response within 20 working days of the panel hearing.
13. The statutory children’s complaints procedure was set up to provide children, young people and those involved in their welfare with access to an independent, thorough and prompt response to their concerns. This independence is not available to complaints put through the corporate complaints procedure. Because of this, we expect people to complete the complaints procedure before we will consider whether there were any flaws in how the Council investigated their concerns. I have therefore not investigated Mrs X’s concerns about the substantive matter.

What happened

14. On 15 October 2024 Mrs X made a complaint to the Council. The complaint was mostly about how its children’s social services team had worked with Mrs X, her child and other members of her family. The complaint included actions taken by other departments in the Council.
15. On 22 November it contacted Mrs X’s about the complaint. It apologised for the delay. It said some parts of Mrs X’s complaint could not be investigated by its children’s social services department and would be referred to different departments. It asked for Mrs X’s consent to share information with the different departments. It said the rest of the parts of the complaint would be considered by an investigating officer for children’s social services.
16. On 9 December Mrs X gave consent for the information to be shared with the other departments. However, she raised concerns about the parts of her complaint that would be passed to other departments because she thought they were about the actions of the children’s social services department as well.
17. On 11 December the Council emailed Mrs X. It said it had forwarded parts of her complaint to different departments. It said the children’s social services department had decided to temporarily pause its investigation whilst the other departments investigated.
18. Mrs X said she received no contact from the Council between 11 December and 30 January 2025.
19. On 30 January the Council told Mrs X it had decided to move the matter to stage two.
20. Mrs X complained to the Ombudsman in May. She said she had received no update from the Council since January.
21. The Council allocated an IO and IP to investigate Mrs X’s complaint to on 3 July.

Findings

22. I will set out my conclusions on each part of Mrs X’s complaint in turn:

(a) The Council failed to meet the statutory complaint procedure timescales.

23. The council should have completed stage one of the complaint procedure in 20 working days. Stage one started when Mrs X made her initial complaint was on 15 October 2024. It ended when the Council decided to move to stage two on 30 January 2025. There was 74 working days between those dates. This was a delay of 54 working days.
24. The Council should have completed stage two of the complaint procedure in a maximum of 65 working days. Stage two started on 30 January. It was still ongoing when the Council allocated an IO and IP on 3 July. There was 107 days between those dates. This was a delay of 42 working days.
25. I acknowledge Mrs X’s complaint was complex. However, I do not find the complexity of the complaint caused the delay at stage one or two. This is because there were elements of the complaint that were clearly about the children’s social services department. I see no reason why the Council was unable to consider those elements and decide if it was appropriate to investigate them at stage one or stage two within 20 working days. I also do not find the complexity caused the delay at stage two. This is because the delay at stage two was due a shortage of people in the IO and IP roles, which was unrelated to the nature of the complaint.
26. The Council’s delays were fault which caused Mrs X injustice in the form of distress, uncertainty and frustration. I recommend the Council apologise and make a symbolic payment of £250 to Mrs X to acknowledge the injustice.

(b) The Council failed to provide updates about the progress of her complaint.

27. The statutory guidance says the Council should inform the complainant that they have the right to move on to stage two if the time scale has elapsed for stage one. The Council did not do so which was fault.
28. The Council did update Mrs X approximately once per month on 22 November 2024, 11 December and 30 January 2025. However I have seen no evidence it kept Mrs X regularly updated about the progress of her complaint between the end of January and at least until May when she complained to us. I find the Council at fault for not keeping Mrs X adequately updated.
29. The Council’s faults of not providing Mrs X proper updates caused injustice in the form of uncertainty. I recommend the Council apologise to acknowledge the injustice.
30. I considered whether to recommend any service improvements in this case. We have recently made recommendations in another case about a similar fault. The Council has explained its ongoing work to increase its pool of IOs and IPs. This should reduce delays at stage two.
31. There are elements of this complaint that are not covered by the ongoing work. For this reason I recommend the Council remind its relevant officers of the legal requirements and best practice. I invite it to do so by sharing this decision statement and our relevant for guide for practitioners.

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Action

32. Within four weeks of this decision the Council has agreed to:

• Apologise to Mrs X for the delay and not providing adequate updates. We publish guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The organisation should consider this guidance in making the apology I have recommended in my findings.
• Make a symbolic payment to Mrs X of £250 to acknowledge the injustice caused by the delays.
• Remind its relevant officers of the legal requirements and best practice by sharing this decision statement and our guide to help local authorities handle complaints under the children’s services statutory complaints process. It should focus on the parts of the guide that suggest what a council should do if: only some of the complaint comes under the statutory complaints procedure; the complainant adds further issues to their complaint at stage two; or it takes a long time to find an investigating officer or to carry out a stage two adjudication. It should also refer to the key lessons from our investigations listed in the guide.

33. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Decision

34. I have completed my investigation and uphold Mrs X’s complaint. I find fault causing injustice regarding the Council’s delays and updates. The Council has agreed actions to remedy injustice.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman