Complaints against Children’s Services

This how to guide explains the steps that you can take to make a complaint about the conduct or a decision of Children’s Services. 

If you are unhappy with a decision of or the actions of Children’s Services, it may be possible to make a formal complaint.

What is the law in this area?

Following the involvement of Children’s Services it may be that an individual is unhappy with a decision that Children’s Services has made or how their actions have been conducted. It might be that a formal complaint to Children’s Services may be the appropriate remedy. 

The law in this area contains detailed guidance on how and who can make a complaint about Children’s Services and how such complaints are dealt with. Although this guidance relates to all Children’s Services departments in England many Local Authorities may have additional information that relates to their particular procedure for a complaint. It is therefore advised before a complaint is made to collate as much information as possible from the particular Children’s Services department involved.

Note: The guidance mentioned above only applies to Children’s Services departments in England. If making a complaint to a Children’s Services department in Wales it is advised to ask how a complaint is made directly from that department.

Children’s Services are responsible for promoting the safeguarding and welfare of children and where possible ensuring their safety within the designated Local Authority area.

What can I complain about?

A complaint can be made about a variety of issues, including:

• A decision made by the child’s Social Worker or Children’s Services that you or the child is unhappy about
• The actions taken by the child’s Social Worker or Children’s Services in relation to a child
• The conduct, behaviour or appropriateness of the child’s Social Worker or Children’s Services when performing their duty
• Not receiving the service you or the child believes they are entitled to, including whether you believe the child should be of a specified status
• Undue delays in the actions or the decision making process of Children’s Services
• Actions or decisions undertaken by Children’s Services in relation to a Special Guardianship or Adoption order, including those undertaken in relation to the Special Guardianship Regulations 2005 and the Adoption Support Services Regulations 2005
• Actions or decisions undertaken by Children’s Services in relation to initiating Care and Supervision orders
• The contact arrangements in place between a child and the child’s family.

This list is not exhaustive.

Who can make a complaint?

Sections 26 (3) and 24D of the Children Act 1989 and section 3 (1) of the Adoption and Children Act 2002 require a Local Authority to establish a procedure to consider the representations and complaints made to it by the following:

• A child or young person who is being looked after by the Local Authority or his/her parent or other
  person with Parental Responsibility for him/her
• A child or young person who is not looked after but is a child in need or his/her parent or other person with Parental Responsibility for him/her
• Any Local Authority foster carer
• Children leaving care
• Special Guardians
• A child or young person who is under a Special Guardianship Order
• Any person who has applied for Special Guardian Support Services under section 14F (3) and (4) of the Children Act 1989
• Any child or young person who may be adopted or his/her parent or guardian
• Any person wishing to adopt a child
• Any child or young person who has been adopted or his/her natural or adoptive parents or guardians
• Any such person as the Local Authority consider has a sufficient interest in the child’s welfare to warrant his/her representations being considered by them.

If you do not fall within one of these categories it may still be worth making an enquiry with your Local Authority to see if they have an alternative or general complaints procedure. Alternatively, if you have particular concerns about how a Child Protection Conference has been conducted then you may wish to enquire with the Chairperson of that conference as to whether a complaint can be made to them. 

A complaint should be made within one year of the incident unless it is unreasonable to expect a complaint to have been made in that timeframe.

When should I make the complaint?

A complainant must make his/her representations about a matter no later than one year after the grounds to make the representations arose. If your complaint relates to an incident that has occurred more than 1 year ago then a Local Authority can still investigate the matter if it would not be reasonable to expect you to have made the complaint in that timeframe and it is still possible to consider the complaint effectively and fairly.

Where a child or young person wishes to make a complaint about Children’s Services an advocate may be able to help the child to do so. An advocate may be able to express the views and representations of the child in a way that the child cannot and can often give the child support and assistance throughout the process. If a child requires an advocate Coram Voice may be able to provide one on 0808 800 5792. For more information see our information page on Advocacy.

How can a complaint be made?

There are a number of ways that you can make the complaint:

• Online – by accessing the Local Authority’s online complaints procedure
• In person – by telling your child’s Social Worker that you wish to make a complaint
• Telephone – by phoning your Local Authority and asking to make a complaint
• Letter – by writing in to the Local Authority asking to make a complaint about Children’s Services.

What happens after I lodge my complaint?

After a complaint has been lodged the Local Authority or Social Worker should be able to provide you with further details on the complaints procedure. If a child or young person makes a complaint the Local Authority should provide further information on how to obtain an advocate.

Once a complaint has been lodged it will then be passed on to the Complaints Manager who is a designated person within the Local Authority in charge of managing, recording and monitoring the complaints procedure. This person will be independent from direct service providers, such as a child’s Social Worker. If you are not happy with how your complaint is progressing it is worth enquiring with the Complaints Manager as to its status. 

What is the Complaints Procedure?

Complaints should be dealt with in three stages:

• Stage 1: Informal Resolution
• Stage 2: Formal Investigation
• Stage 3: Review Panels

Stage 1 – Informal Resolution

The Local Authority will attempt to resolve most complaints at this stage. It will involve the complainant and the staff members, usually the Social Worker or Independent Reviewing Officer, associated with the complaint having a discussion as to the reason for the complaint and how it can be resolved together. 

The Local Authority should provide you with information on how the discussions are to take place. It may help for the staff member involved to explain why they have taken the decision that they have made. 

Stage 1 of the process should not take more than 10 working days. The Local Authority can extend this by a further 10 days if it believes it can provide a more comprehensive response in that time. If you reach a conclusion to the complaint in this time the Local Authority should provide you with a written letter detailing the agreed resolution. If this time limit lapses or you are unhappy at the response from stage 1 then you can request to take the complaint to stage 2.

Stage 2 – Formal Investigation

In Stage 2 the Complaints Manager will arrange a full and comprehensive investigation into what the complaint is about and the actions undertaken by Children’s Services to warrant a complaint being made.

The Complaints Manager will appoint an Investigating Officer and an Independent Person to conduct the investigation. The Investigating Officer will lead the investigation and write a report to a senior manager. The Independent Person will also consider the complaint alongside the Investigating Officer to ensure impartiality throughout the investigation. This person must not be an employee or an elected member of the Local Authority and may have prior knowledge of the issues relating to the complaint. 

The Complaints Manager should also ensure at this stage that orally submitted complaints are recorded in writing detailing the complainant’s desired outcome. 

After the Investigating Officer has researched and examined the evidence regarding the complaint he or she will write a report to a senior manager within the Local Authority. The report should contain the findings and outcomes of the investigation and make recommendations on how to remedy any wrong doing from the Local Authority. The report may also contain information from the Independent Person on the impartiality of the investigation. The senior manager will act as an adjudicating officer on the report and make a decision as to the appropriate and required action that he/she hopes will best resolve the complaint. The senior manager’s response should be sent, along with a copy of the investigation report, to the complainant containing full and comprehensive reasoning as to the senior manager’s decision.

The investigation and response should be completed and sent to the complainant within 25 working days. The Local Authority can however extend this time period to a maximum of 65 working days if the matter is particularly complicated, an integral person to the investigation is unavailable or several agencies are involved. If an extension is required this should be detailed to the complainant in writing with the specified reasons for needing an extension and the expected date of completion. 

If you are not happy with the response from the senior manager and the outcome of the complaint once stage 2 has concluded then you should request the outcome of the complaint be determined by a Review Panel. There is a time limit of 20 working days to make this request from the receipt of the letter from the senior manager.

Stage 3 – Review Panels

The purpose of the Review Panel is for three independent people to work on a solution for the complainant through a fair and accessible process and to possibly remedy any injustice caused by the actions of the Local Authority. The Review Panel can review the stage 2 investigation for accuracy, make recommendations for improvement of the service and seek to redress the complaint directly with an outcome suitable to the complainant. The Review Panel should always act with objectivity, impartiality and fairness.

The Panel must be held within 30 working days of the receipt of a request for a Review. The Local Authority should acknowledge the complainant’s request within 2 working days of receiving it. The Complainant should be notified of the location and date at least 10 working days before the Review Panel meets.

The Review Panel should be made of three people who are neither members nor officers of the Local Authority. When selecting the Review Panel members the Local authority should demonstrate their independence, take heed of any particular knowledge or skills needed and use foresight to recognise any conflict of interest that may arise. The complainant can be accompanied by another person and this person can speak on their behalf. The senior officer who made the decision in stage 2 should attend the Review as the representative of the Local Authority.

The Review Panel should be designed to be as informal as possible and is usually made up of three parts: pre-meeting; presentations by the parties and deliberation. It is during the presentations stage that the complainant will be given a chance to explain their case and put forward what they believe Children’s Services have done wrong. Once the deliberations stage is reached the Panel is required to write a report detailing the representations that the parties made and the Panel’s recommendations. The report should be sent to the complainant and the Local Authority within 5 working days.

The Local Authority must respond to the Panel’s recommendations to the complainant within 15 working days of receiving the Panel’s report. The response should be from the relevant Director of the Local Authority and should explain if the Local Authority is going to follow the recommendations of the Panel and if and what action is going to be taken against Children’s Services. If the Local Authority does not follow the recommendations it should explain why. The response should also mention the complainant’s right to further his complaint to the Local Government Ombudsman.

What happens after the three-stage process?

The Local Government Act 2000 enables local authorities to remedy any injustice that has arisen as a result of maladministration. This can include financial compensation. This would be designed to put the complainant in the position they would have been in had the fault from the Local Authority not occurred. The amount of financial remedy should be appropriate and proportionate to the injustice caused. 

The Local Authority may also make suggestions on improvements to how Children’s Services conduct themselves and can also order that certain decisions are deferred or frozen until the complaint has been heard. This is particularly useful if the complainant is aggrieved about the contents of a care plan or a child’s placement. The Local Authority can defer decisions on this until the complaint is heard and the complainant has had a chance to explain why Children’s Services have acted unjustly, incorrectly or inappropriately.

Note: The Local Authority should only consider deferring a decision if it does not place the child at a significant risk of harming the child’s physical or mental wellbeing. The complaints procedure should not be used to frustrate the actions of Children’s Services when the child is at risk.

Finally if the Local Authority perceives a particular person to have acted inappropriately in carrying out their role for Children’s Services they can initiate a disciplinary procedure against that person. The Local Authority will only do this if it proves that person acted outside of their job description. Disciplinary procedures will tend to be kept separate from the complaints procedure and the distinction should be clear to all the parties involved. The Local Authority will respect staff confidentiality in any disciplinary procedure.

Who else can look into a complaint?

Local Government Ombudsman

The Local Government Ombudsman is the body responsible for hearing complaints about the actions of Local Authorities. It is independent from the Local Authority and should look at the complaint in an unbiased way.

A complainant has the right to further their complaint to the Local Government Ombudsman at any time during the Children’s Services complaints process but the Ombudsman may expect the complainant to exhaust the Local Authority complaints procedure first and may direct the complainant back to the Local Authority if necessary. If the Local Authority has breached the time limits above for any of the stages or if you remain unhappy with the decision of the Local Authority following stage 3 of the complaints procedure then the Local Government Ombudsman may be the appropriate body to look for further redress.

The Local Government Ombudsman can be contacted on 0300 061 0614.

Complaints to the Ombudsman should be made within twelve months of the complainant first receiving notice of the matters alleged in the complaint. This period can be extended if the Ombudsman considers it reasonable to do so.

The Ombudsman has the power to obtain information from Children’s Services if necessary and can make recommendations on how injustice can be corrected. The Ombudsman also has the power to publish its findings of any wrong doing in the local press.

High Court Judicial Review

Judicial Review is the process where the courts adjudicate over the actions of a public body. Children’s Services is a public body and its decisions may be subject to judicial review. The purpose of the judicial review is not to look at whether the correct decision has been made but rather to evaluate the lawfulness or rationality of the decision. Therefore you cannot simply apply to have a decision judicially reviewed just because you disagree with it. The court will only accept an application if the process by which Children’s Services came to a decision is fundamentally flawed and therefore unlawful, wholly irrational or so unreasonable that no reasonable decision maker could possibly have come to that decision. It is possible for the court to direct Children’s Services to take particular action regarding a decision.

Judicial review is a very complex area of law and advice from a solicitor is strongly advised in order to make an application. The process can also be very expensive and you may want to see if you are eligible for Legal Aid before embarking on this course of action. You can call Civil Legal Advice on 0345 345 4345 to see whether you are eligible Legal Aid. 

There is a three month time limit on an action for judicial review starting from when the decision-maker made the decision. This means that if the Children’s Services complaints procedure has been followed it may not be possible to then apply for the decision to be judicially reviewed. Complainants should be aware of this before embarking on the complaints process.

If is important to remember that the court will not simply substitute its decision in the case for the original decision made by Children’s Services, it may simply notify the Local Authority that the case needs to be heard again with the correct procedure undertaken. You should therefore be clear about what remedy you seek.

The Secretary of State for Education

It is possible to make a complaint to the Secretary of State for Education who has responsibility for child protection in England. The Secretary of State or the Department for Education can direct Children’s Services to undertake a particular action or investigate the decision if they feel that they have acted in an unjust manner. Complaints to the Secretary of State may only be considered after a complaint to the Local Authority and the Local Government Ombudsman have been made. 

If you want to make a complaint about the actions of Children’s Services then you can lodge a complaint online on the Department for Education website. 

Or you can write a letter and send it to:

Ministerial and Public Communications Division
Department for Education
Piccadilly Gate
Store Street
Manchester M1 2WD

Alternatively you can call the Department for Education on 0370 000 2288.

Further guidance on complaints to Children’s Services can be found from: Getting the Best from Complaints from the Department for Education.