Summary: The Council was at fault for delays to its handling of
Mrs X’s complaint about its children’s social care service. It also failed to write a letter of apology to her after agreeing to do so. These failings caused her distress and inconvenience. The Council has now agreed to send her the apology letter and will pay her a symbolic financial remedy to recognise her injustice.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complains about various ways in which she and her daughter, Y, were failed by the Council’s children’s social care service during a family crisis which led to the breakdown of Y’s adoption. She says the Council failed to conduct safeguarding enquiries, failed to read professional reports or attach them to Y’s file, and threatened to have Mrs X arrested after she asked for help.
2. Mrs X also complains about how the Council handled her complaint. She says it:
• ignored the findings of its complaint review panel, including that its actions caused Y to be sexually exploited;
• caused delays;
• insisted that a solicitor act as clerk to the review panel, against the wishes of the Chair and against statutory guidance;
• failed to send a letter of apology afterwards, despite promising to do so; and
• failed to take actions afterwards which were sufficient to demonstrate that lessons have been learned.

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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. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide we could not add to any previous investigation by the council. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
5. If we are satisfied with a council’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(1), as amended)
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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How I considered this complaint

7. I considered evidence provided by Mrs X and the Council as well as relevant guidance.
8. 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

Guidance

9. The statutory guidance, ‘Getting the best from complaints’, is drawn from the Children Act 1989 Representations Procedure (England) Regulations 2006. It sets out a three-stage procedure for complaints about certain aspects of children’s social care. I refer to this as ‘the statutory procedure’.
10. Parents can use this procedure to complain about their children’s social care assessment and support. The benefit of the procedure is that the parent gets an independent investigation of their complaint (at stage 2), and, if they wish, a review by an independent panel (at stage 3).
11. Councils have 10 working days to respond to most stage 1 complaints. But if they cannot respond in this time limit, it can be extended for another 10 working days.
12. Councils have 25 working days to respond to stage two complaints. However, in certain circumstances (such as if the complaint is particularly complicated), this can be extended to a maximum of 65 working days. If the complaint is submitted in writing, the ‘start date’ is when the complaint is made.
13. If a council receives a request to arrange a stage 3 panel hearing, it has 30 working days to do so.
14. Ideally, no party should need to be represented by a solicitor at the panel hearing. The purpose of the panel is to consider the complaint and, where possible, work towards a resolution. It is not a quasi-judicial process, and the presence of solicitors can work against the spirit of openness and problem-solving.
15. The Chair of the panel should make the final decision on who attends the hearing.
16. After the hearing, the panel has 5 working days to issue its recommendations. The council then has 15 working days to respond to the recommendations.
17. If the council does not agree with the panel’s recommendations it should provide its reasoning in its response.

What happened

18. Mrs X made her stage 1 complaint to the Council in November 2023. The Council responded in late January 2024.
19. In February, Mrs X made two further stage 1 complaints. She also asked to take her previous complaint to stage 2.
20. In April, the Council responded to one of the further stage 1 complaints but did not respond to the other.
21. Later in April, the Council appointed an investigating officer to look at Mrs X’s stage 2 complaint. The officer met with Mrs X and, in May, agreed the statement of complaint.
22. In August, the investigating officer completed their report. They noted that the time limit for their investigation was up to 65 working days, “from the date on which the complaint was received (normally taken to be the date on which the Statement of Complaint was agreed as accurate)”.
23. The investigating officer upheld almost all of Mrs X’s complaints, and found that:
• Y’s social worker threatened to have Mrs X arrested. It was “difficult to accept” that this caused Y no emotional harm.
• Y’s independent reviewing officer (IRO) did not read reports prior to meetings.
• The IRO failed to consider relevant information about Y and failed to challenge her social worker when this information was not on Y’s file.
• Although the Council agreed that the threshold was met for child protection enquiries, it then failed to take further action.
• Y’s records provided evidence of decision-making based on inaccurate information, no working together across departments, bias against Mrs X, and an unsuitable placement for Y where she was sexually exploited.
24. The investigating officer recommended a formal apology, a review of Y’s care plan and an acknowledgment that the Council’s failures caused Y harm. They also recommended improvements to the Council’s service.
25. The Council agreed with the investigating officer’s findings and recommendations, with one exception. It felt that Mrs X had been resistant to cooperating with its children’s social care service, which had hindered its assessment and support of Y. It also felt the service had not been helped by other departments and agencies.
26. The Council also said that, although Y’s placement was unsuitable, this was because it needed to place her in an emergency, because of Mrs X’s refusal to let her stay at home. It said this was the only placement it could find at short notice, although it acknowledged that it could have done more ‘proactive planning’ to find her somewhere else (and to support her while she was there).
27. The Council nonetheless agreed to send a written apology to Mrs X. It also agreed to review Y’s support, and to improve its service in the ways recommended by the investigating officer.
28. Upon receiving the Council’s stage 2 complaint response in September 2024,
    Mrs X immediately asked to escalate the complaint to stage 3. But the panel hearing was not held until March 2025.
29. The panel focused on the disagreement between the investigating officer and the Council at stage 2. And it found that:
• Had Y’s social worker, team manager, and IRO taken the time to read relevant reports, their decisions for her might have been different.
• Although Y’s placement was the only one with availability at the time, this was seemingly the result of a search for standard accommodation, rather than a search for the more specialist accommodation that Y required. Y’s need for more specialist accommodation was not known by the Council because it had not read the information Mrs X provided.
• The Council was aware that the placement was unsuitable for Y. But while she was there, it did not consider more suitable accommodation and did not put proactive support in place for her.
• Y was sexually exploited while in her placement, which caused her harm and distress. Although the panel could not say that this would not have happened had support been in place for her, the Council did nothing to mitigate against it despite knowing the placement was unsuitable.
• There was a significant delay bringing Mrs X’s stage 3 complaint to the panel.
• The Council brought a solicitor to the panel hearing, which should not be necessary and is discouraged by statutory guidance.
30. The panel recommended that the Council apologise to Mrs X, place a summary of the upheld complaints on Y’s file, and meet with Mrs X to agree corrections to Y’s records. It also recommended various service improvements, including about the Council not bringing a solicitor to panel hearings in future.
31. The Council agreed to write an apology letter to Mrs X. It also agreed to put a summary of Mrs X’s views on Y’s file. But it did not agree to hold a meeting with Mrs X to correct Y’s records, because they were Y’s records, not Mrs X’s.
32. The Council also apologised for the delay to the stage 3 panel, which, it said, was because Mrs X wanted a senior manager there and their availability was limited.
33. The Council agreed to most of the recommended service improvements, except for the recommendation about not bringing a solicitor to panel hearings. It said its solicitor attended as a panel clerk and does so for every panel the Council arranges. It said a solicitor is appropriate for this role because they are well-suited to ensuring compliance with statutory procedure. It said the solicitor’s camera and microphone were turned off after the initial part of Mrs X’s hearing.
34. The Council confirms that it has completed all the recommended actions arising from the statutory procedure except the written apology. It says it has apologised to Mrs X verbally several times.

My findings

35. If a complaint has already been through the statutory procedure, this means the complainant has already had access to an independent investigation.
36. We are not an appeal stage and do not simply add another independent investigation to the previous one as a matter of course. We will not normally re-investigate such a complaint unless we have reason to believe the previous investigation was flawed in a way which disadvantaged the complainant.
37. I have considered the documents from Mrs X’s complaint, and I note that all significant complaints which she brought through the statutory procedure and subsequently to the Ombudsman have already been upheld.
38. Because of this, it is unlikely I would be able to add anything significant to what the Council has already said. If I were to reinvestigate the statutory complaint, it is also unlikely that this would lead to a substantially different outcome for Mrs X – so I will not do so.
39. However, I have considered the complaints Mrs X raises about how the Council administered the statutory complaints procedure in her case.

The Council’s response to the review panel’s findings

40. This Council did not have to comment on the review panel’s findings in its stage 3 complaint response. It had to comment on panel’s recommendations. If it disagreed with any recommendations, it had to explain why.
41. In Mrs X’s case, the Council agreed to most of the panel’s recommendations and gave fair reasons for not agreeing to the others. It was within its rights to do this.
42. Any written acceptance by the Council of the failings identified by the panel was a matter for the apology letter it agreed in its stage 3 response. I will address that letter later on in this statement.

Statutory complaint delay

43. The Council delayed one of its stage 1 responses and did not send another. And its stage 2 investigation took two and half months longer than it should have done. The Council was at fault for these delays.
44. This stage 2 delay was partly caused by the Council taking almost two months to appoint an investigating officer. Their report then took three weeks longer than the 65 working days allowed for the whole stage 2 process. It then took the Council a further month to issue its adjudication.
45. In their report, the investigating officer recorded that the start date for a stage 2 investigation is the date on which the statement of complaint is agreed. This is, in fact, only the case for a complaint made verbally. For a written complaint – as in Mrs X’s case – the start date is the date the complaint is made. The Council should bring this to the investigating officer’s attention.
46. Mrs X requested a stage 3 panel on the same day she received the stage 2 adjudication. But the hearing did not take place for almost six months. This amounted to a significant delay, for which the Council was at fault.
47. The Council put this delay down to ‘extensive efforts’ to ensure Mrs X’s wishes were accommodated, in that she wanted a senior manager to attend. But this does not justify the process taking four times as long as it should have done.
48. The Council has apologised for the delays during the statutory procedure, but a symbolic financial remedy in line with our guidance is also appropriate.

Solicitor attending panel hearing

49. The statutory guidance discourages any party from bringing solicitors to a panel hearing, because of the adversarial environment this can create. But equally, the guidance provides no restrictions on who can be the clerk to the panel.
50. The Council’s solicitor is clerk to its stage 3 panels. It believes they are well-placed to ensure procedural correctness (which is one of the main responsibilities of the clerk). The solicitor has no other role in the hearing, and the Council says that, in Mrs X’s case, their camera and microphone were turned off.
51. As the solicitor was not actively involved in the Council’s representations, I am satisfied that they did not contribute towards the hearing becoming the ‘quasi-judicial’ process that the statutory guidance seeks to avoid. Because of this, coupled with the lack of restrictions in the guidance on who may act as clerk to panel, I have found no fault with the Council.
52. The Chair of the panel, ultimately, decides who attends. If they are concerned that the attendance of a solicitor is working against the spirit of openness and problem-solving, they can take action to resolve this.

Actions following statutory procedure

53. The Council has completed almost all the actions it agreed during the statutory procedure. There is, however, one exception: the written apology.
54. This apology letter is the thing which goes furthest towards meeting Mrs X’s desired outcomes. She mostly wants the Council to own up to its mistakes.
55. The Council has accepted that it has not sent a written apology and has instead apologised verbally. But this was not what it agreed to do. It was at fault for not sending the written apology, and it should now send this without further delay.

Lessons learned

56. Our role in telling councils how to improve their services is generally limited to reminding them of the instructions offered in relevant legislation, guidance and policy documents. We do not usually propose a change to service delivery unless it is a procedural requirement.
57. In Mrs X’s case, the review panel made a series of recommendations for service improvements, all of which were appropriate in the circumstances. The Council agreed to almost all of them and committed to doing various things better in the future (although only time will tell whether it does).
58. The one recommended improvement the Council refused was about its solicitor acting as clerk to the panel, which I have already addressed, above. There is little I can add.

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Action

59. Within four weeks, the Council has agreed to:
• Write to Mrs X with a detailed apology for the areas of fault identified at stages 2 and 3 of the statutory complaints procedure. We publish guidance which sets out what we expect an effective apology to look like. The Council will consider this guidance when writing to Mrs X.
• Pay Mrs X a symbolic remedy of £400 to recognise that its complaint-handling delays caused her distress and inconvenience.
• Draw its stage 2 investigating officer’s attention to Regulation 17(4) and (5) of the Children Act 1989 Representations Procedure (England) Regulations 2006. This Regulation says that, when a stage 2 complaint is received in writing, the ‘start date’ of the investigation is the date the complaint is made. The start date is only later than this if a complaint is made verbally.
60. The Council will provide us with evidence it has done these things.

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Decision

61. The Council was at fault, and this caused Mrs X an injustice, which the Council will now take action to address.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman