A report providing the Committee with an overview of complaints activity and performance for Children’s Social Care for the period from 1 April 2018 to 31 March 2019.

The Director of Children’s Services, Brighter Futures for Children, submitted a report that provided the Committee with an overview of complaints activity and performance for Children’s Social Care for the period from 1 April 2018 to 31 March 2019.  A copy of the Children’s Social Care Complaints 2018/19 – Summary Report was attached to the report at Appendix A.

The report stated that during the period the service had received 96 statutory complaints, which was a decrease of 40 (29.4%) compared to 2017/18.  Of the 96 complaints that had been received:

·         19 had been resolved through Alternative Dispute Resolution by the Social Care Teams;

·         77 had progressed to a formal investigation.

During the same period, 11 complaints had progressed to a Stage 2 investigation, although these had not all been progressions of Stage 1 complaints that had been received in the same period, as some had related to Stage 1 investigations that had been carried out in 2017/18.  The Customer Relations Team had continued to raise awareness of the complaints process and in accordance with recommendations from Ofsted had worked with operational teams to encourage children and young people to submit complaints where they had been dissatisfied with the service they had received.  The Council and Brighter Futures for Children had worked closely to drive improvement in the services for children.

Resolved –

(1)     That the contents of the report and intended actions to further improve the management of representations and complaints in 2019/20 for Children’s Social Care be noted;

(2)     That the continuing work to raise awareness of the complaints process and encourage its use by children and young people be noted.