London Borough of Richmond upon Thames (26 014 744)
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We have upheld Mr X’s complaint because the Council delayed considering this under the statutory children’s complaints process. The Council has agreed to resolve the complaint early by providing a proportionate remedy for the injustice caused to Mr X.
The complaint
- Mr X complains the actions of the Council’s children’s services have caused him harm and distress.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we are satisfied with the actions an organisation has taken or proposes to take. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(7), as amended)
- Under our information sharing agreement, we will share this decision with the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted).
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by Mr X and the Council.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- We expect councils to complete the statutory children’s complaints process before we will consider a complaint.
- If we were to investigate it is likely we would find fault causing Mr X injustice because the Council refused to progress Mr X’s complaint to stage 3 of the statutory children’s complaints process. I note the Council asked Mr X to read the stage 2 documents in full and provide detailed reasons for escalation to stage 3. However, Mr X has the right to go to stage 3 if he is unhappy with stage 2, which he is. He said it was inaccurate and left out allegations. He is not required to read the stage 2 documents in full or to provide further detailed reasons for seeking escalation.
- We therefore asked the Council to consider remedying the injustice caused by taking the following actions to resolve the complaint early, within one month of this decision:
- Provide an apology to Mr X, taking account of our guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice,
- Convene and hold a stage 3 review panel within one month and then complete the stage within the relevant timescales, and
- Pay Mr X £100 for distress caused by the delay.
Agreed action
- To its credit the Council agreed to resolve the complaint and will complete the actions at paragraph 8, to put things right.
Final decision
- 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.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman