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Dealing with complaints

Under the Children Act 1989, we are legally required to have a procedure to deal with complaints relating to our key social care responsibilities, which are defined in the Act.

The children’s statutory complaints procedure has three stages (see below). If a complainant remains dissatisfied after they have exhausted these stages, they can escalate their complaint to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO), who they are also free to approach at any time during the complaints process.

Complaints about our Children’s Social Care Services can be complex and time consuming. Whilst every effort is made to deal with them on time, sometimes responses are delayed due to the time to investigate them or because more information becomes available which changes the nature of the initial complaint.

Our Children’s Social Care Services attempt to contact every complainant by telephone or face to face before they begin investigating their complaint. Sometimes this causes a complaint response to be delayed and/or for the nature of the complaint to change. However, by taking this approach we are often able to resolve a complaint more quickly, prevent it from escalating unnecessarily and ensure all the relevant aspects of the complaint are dealt with correctly. Although naturally, this does not always prevent some complainant’s from escalating their complaint. 

Stage 1 - The relevant Service Manager or Head of Service investigates the complaint and attempts to resolve the issues raised by the complainant. We have 10 working days to resolve the complaint, but this can be extended to 20 working days in exceptional cases.

Stage 2 - If the complainant remains dissatisfied with the Stage 1 outcome, they can escalate their complaint to Stage 2 where an Independent Investigating Officer (IO) investigates their complaint, whose work is overseen by an Independent Person (IP). The IP makes sure the investigation is fair, transparent and lawful.

The IO can be a council employee, or someone appointed externally specifically for this piece of work. We always appoint an investigator from outside the Council to ensure the process is as fair as possible. The IP must be an independent external appointment. 

The IO and IP work with the complainant to investigate the issues the complainant feels were not adequately resolved at Stage 1. After they have finished investigating the complaint the IO produces a report making recommendations about how we can provide a better and/or improve the service to the complainant. This may include proposals on how we can rectify any faults that have been identified. The IP also produces a report advising if they agree with the findings of the IO.

Our Deputy Director of Children’s Services considers the reports from the IO and IP in their role as an Adjudicating Officer. They can agree, partially agree, or reject the findings of the IO and IP. The Deputy Director writes to the complainant setting out their findings within 25 working days of the IO and IP’s reports. The time can be extended depending on the complexity of the investigation.

Stage 3: If the complainant remains dissatisfied at the end of Stage 2, they can escalate their complaint to a Review Panel. The panel consists of three people independent of the Council. The panel considers the reasons why the complainant was unhappy with the outcome of the Stage 2 complaint and submits recommendations about how the complaint might be resolved to the Director of Children’s Services. The Director of the service reviews the recommendations and writes to the complainant advising if they agree, partly agree or rejects them, which completes the process.

There are various timescales at Stage 3 of the complaints process:

  • we have 30 working days to organise the panel upon receipt of the complainant’s request
  • the Panel Chair has five working days after the hearing has occurred to produce a report with its recommendations
  • following receipt of the Panel’s report, the Director of Children’s Services has 15 working days to send their response to the complainant

Following the conclusion of the Stage 3 process, the complainant can escalate their concerns to the LGSCO if they remain dissatisfied.