A report providing the Committee with an overview of complaints activity and performance for Children’s Social Care for the period from the 1 of April 2017 to the 31 of March 2018.

The Director of Children, Education and Early Help Services submitted a report providing the Committee with an overview of complaints activity and performance for Children’s Social Care for the period from the 1 April 2017 to the 31 March 2018.

The report stated that during the period the service had received 136 statutory complaints, which was an increase of four (3.03%) compared to 2016/17.  Of the 136 complaints that had been received:

·         34 had been resolved through Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) by the Social Care Teams;

·         98 had been progressed to a formal investigation;

·         4 had been withdrawn.

During the same period six complaints had progressed to a Stage 2 investigation, and two had progressed to a Stage 3 investigation.  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 were dissatisfied with the service they had received.

A copy of the Children’s Social Care Complaints 2017/18 – Summary Report was attached to the report at Appendix A and provided an analysis of the data.  The report explained how complaints were managed and how the learning was used to improve services.

Resolved –

(1)     That the contents of the report and intended actions to further improve the management of representations and complaints in 2018/19 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.