A report outlining the work that Children’s Services have carried out to improve customer relations, focusing on complaints and compliments and covering Subject Access Requests, for the year 2024/25.

The Committee received a report that outlined the work that Children’s Services had carried out to improve customer relations, focusing on complaints and compliments and covering Subject Access Requests, for the year 2024/25.  The Children’s Social Care Complaints 2024/25 - Summary Report was attached to the report at Appendix A.

The report stated that during the financial year 2024/25 Children’s Service had received 66 statutory complaints, which was a decrease of nine (13.6%) compared to the 75 that had been received in 2023/24.  To provide context, in 2024/25 3,202 children had been open to Children’s Social Care, so the number of statutory complaints represented 2.09%.  This compared to 3,589 open children and 2.06% for 2023/24.  Of the 66 complaints that had been received:

• 11 (16.67%) had been resolved through alternative dispute resolution (ADR) by the social care team at the start of the process, before progressing to a formal Stage 1.  These 11 cases had been closed off following a telephone discussion with the complainant and a short written response either by letter or email;
• The remaining 55 (83.33%) had progressed to a formal Stage 1 investigation.

During the reporting period, 11 Stage 2 requests had been received in respect of the Stage 1 investigations that had been carried out in the reporting period:

• One of these had been resolved through ADR;
• The remaining ten had progressed to formal Stage 2 investigation;
• Three of the ten Stage 2 investigations had also been reviewed by a Stage 3 Review Panel.

Both the Customer Relations Team and Children’s Services Communications and Compliance and HR/Training teams had continued to raise awareness of the complaints process with both staff and the public. 

The report explained that the Children’s Social Care Complaints 2024/25 - Summary Report, attached to the report at Appendix A, provided an analysis of the data for statutory complaints, explained how complaints were managed and how learning was used to improve services; the report would be published on the Council’s website.  The Council had worked closely to drive improvements in the services that were offered to children and young people and to signpost to information on advocacy, early resolution and the complaints procedures.  Nevertheless, it was recognised that there was always room for improvement and the service was working continuously to better the services offered to children and families.

Resolved –

(1)      That the report and intended actions to further improve service delivery and the management of representations, particularly complaints, in Children’s Services in Reading be noted;

(2)      That the continuing work to raise awareness of all conflict resolution processes, including the statutory complaints process and encouraging appropriate use by children, young people and their families, be noted.