Council was “gatekeeping” when it failed to investigate children’s services complaints properly, Ombudsman says
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) has criticised Isle of Wight Council for “gatekeeping” after it failed to properly investigate a mother's complaint about the way it removed her disabled son's personal budget.
The Ombudsman said the council’s failings prevented the mother from accessing her statutory rights after it found the authority had refused to consider her complaint past stage 1 of the statutory children's three-stage complaint procedure. The watchdog also found fault with the council's management of the boy's personal budget.
The mother's complaint centred on the council deciding to stop the money she received as a personal budget for her son, who has complex needs, because it said she was not spending the money in line with their agreement.
After being unhappy with the council's initial response, the mother asked the council four times to escalate her complaint to Stage 2 of the three-stage statutory children's complaints procedure. Each time she asked for her complaint to be escalated, the council decided her dissatisfaction was about a separate issue and was a new complaint. But her complaint was about the same issue throughout, the Ombudsman found, and any new issues were the result of the council's failure to investigate her complaint correctly.
The mother sought help from a solicitor to try to get the council to escalate her complaint. The council then told her she needed to meet certain criteria before it would be progressed. At this point the mother had been complaining to the council for seven months.
By the time the mother complained to the Ombudsman, the council had delayed her complaint by more than a year.
Michael King, Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, said that statutory guidance "says councils must progress complaints through all three stages of the children's complaints procedure if that is what the person wants".
He added: "Statutory guidance says councils must progress complaints through all three stages of the children's complaints procedure if that is what the person wants.
"By putting barriers and conditions on the mother's complaint and insisting she was making new complaints even when they covered the same issues, the council was, in effect, gatekeeping and preventing her from accessing her statutory rights.
"I am pleased the council has accepted my recommendations and hope the training and procedural changes it has agreed to make will ensure other complaints are handled properly in future."
The Ombudsman said he would be issuing new guidance to local authorities shortly to clarify how he expected them to tackle children's complaints."
On the recommendation of the LGSCO, Isle of Wight has agreed to apologise to the family and pay the son £100 to acknowledge he did not have access to a service he was entitled to for two months.
It will also pay the mother £300 to acknowledge the uncertainty and distress caused and £500 to acknowledge the time and trouble caused by not escalating her complaint to stage two.
During its investigation, the Ombudsman also uncovered evidence that other people on the island had also not had their complaints properly considered through the statutory process.
The Council is set to discuss the Ombudsman's report in full in a Cabinet meeting on Thursday, 11 March.
Adam Carey
