This fact sheet is aimed primarily at parents, carers and young people who have a problem with a children’s support services and may be considering making a complaint to the Ombudsman.

I am dissatisfied with the outcome of my complaint about children's support services. How can the Ombudsman help me?

If you’ve made a complaint and the council has looked into it, but you’re unhappy with the result or with the way your complaint has been dealt with, you can complain to us. But please be aware that we cannot question what a council has done simply because someone does not agree with it. 

There are some kinds of complaints we can’t deal with. We can’t look into complaints about anything that has been considered by a court. And we can’t stop a council from taking court action that will affect you. This may include starting proceedings to take a child into care, or to have a child adopted.

In the same way, you can’t use a complaint to us as a way of appealing against a court decision. If you want to change a decision a court has taken you need to seek legal advice, and we can’t help you with that.

How do I complain?

You should complain to the council first. We will not normally consider a complaint until it has gone right through either the statutory children’s complaints procedure or the council’s own complaints procedure.

You should normally complain to us within 12 months of the events you are complaining about. When you make a complaint to the council you should be given information about what will happen to your complaint and how long this will take.

There are three stages to the statutory children’s complaints procedure. You should normally only complain to us if you’re not happy with the outcome at the end of the third stage. You can, however, complain to us at any stage if there have been significant delays to the council’s handling of your complaint.

If your complaint has been considered under the council’s own complaints procedure, there will normally be two stages, after which the council should refer you to us.

It can take longer to get a response to a complaint about children’s support services than it does for some other things. But if the council is actively investigating the complaint and there are no significant delays, you should normally complete the council’s complaints procedure before making a complaint to us.

My complaint has been through the statutory three-stage children’s complaints procedure. What will the Ombudsman do?

If your complaint has been through the statutory children’s complaints procedure, this means it’s already been independently investigated.

We are not an appeal stage, and we don’t routinely re-investigate such complaints unless we believe the previous independent investigation was flawed in a way which disadvantaged you.

In deciding this, we can consider whether, for example, the council:

• Followed government complaints-handling guidance.
• Arranged an advocate for a child or young person who wanted to make a complaint.
• Provided you with information about how it would deal with your complaint and how long this would take.
• Looked into all the important issues you wanted to complain about.
• Answered your complaint without delay.
• Looked at evidence properly.
• Reached findings on your complaint which were accurate and justified.
• Tried to put things right for you.

If we can see no obvious problems with the previous independent investigation, we normally won’t re-investigate your complaint (although we may comment on things such as delay or poor communication).

If, however, we decide the previous independent investigation was inadequate in a way which disadvantaged you (or if your complaint wasn’t eligible for the children’s statutory procedure), then we may conduct our own investigation into your complaint.

What does an Ombudsman investigation involve?

Over the course of an investigation we may consider whether, for example, a council:

• Conducted a timely assessment of a child’s needs.
• Provided the right support, without delay, to a child or family.
• Calculated the right financial support for an adopter or special guardian.
• Followed government guidance correctly.
• Kept proper records.
• Communicated properly with a child’s parent.

The approach we take will vary according to the type of complaint. The investigator will keep you updated and will be able to answer any questions you have about the investigation process.

What will the Ombudsman do to put things right?

A lot depends on what we think went wrong and how we think you’ve been affected.

Sometimes things have happened that can’t be undone. But, in all other cases, we will ask the council to try and put you back in the position you would have been in had nothing gone wrong. This may include asking it to:

• Carry out a proper assessment or review.
• Provide the right support services to you or your child.
• Provide additional support, if appropriate, to make up for anything you’ve missed out on.
• Make changes to its procedures so the same problem does not happen again to you or anyone else.

If there is no other way of putting things right, we may recommend a financial remedy. Our approach to this will depend on how you’ve been affected by what has gone wrong.

Examples of some complaints we have considered. You can see others on our website as we publish our decisions.

Our fact sheets give some general information about the most common type of complaints we receive but they cannot cover every situation. If you are not sure whether we can look into your complaint, please contact us.

April 2025