Make a complaint about children's social care
Overview
If you aren't happy with our services, you may wish to make a complaint. We'll try to put things right for you quickly and learn from your complaint so that we can improve our services. We will support you, treat you fairly, and give you a full response to any concerns that you raise.
You can complain about the children’s social care services we provide and those we commission from other providers.
You should make your complaint as soon as possible. It should be no later than 12 months from the event or from realising that there was a problem.
Who can complain
You can complain if you’re:
- a child or young person who receives social care services – you can ask an advocate to help you
- a parent, carer or other adult acting on behalf of a child or young person who receives social care services
If you’re complaining on a child’s behalf, we will check if they are happy for this to happen.
How to make a complaint
We'll need to know your name and address, email address or phone number. If you're complaining on someone else's behalf, please tell us their name.
Explain what your complaint is about, and what outcome you're looking for.
You can do this by:
What happens next
When we receive your complaint, we’ll assess it to make sure it meets the criteria for the statutory process. If not, we’ll let you know and tell you what to do next.
There are three stages to the children's social care statutory complaints procedure:
Stage 1: Local resolution
Stage 2: Independent investigation
Stage 3: Review panel
We'll let you know that we’ve received your complaint within 5 working days. We will pass it to a manager so they can respond. They may get in touch with you to talk about it.
We aim to respond within 10 working days, but it might take up to 20 days. If this happens, we will let you know and explain why.
We'll write to you explaining what we found and what we will do about it.
If you’re still unhappy after reading your Stage 1 response, you can ask for a Stage 2 investigation. You’ll need to do this within 20 working days of receiving the response letter.
We’ll see if the problems can be fixed by talking to the team you’ve complained about. If not, we’ll decide if your complaint should go on to the next stage.
At Stage 2 your complaint will be looked at by two people:
- an independent investigation officer (IO) – someone who hasn’t been involved in the complaint so far
- an independent person (IP) - someone who doesn’t work for the council
We aim to complete the investigation within 25 working days. If that’s not possible, we may take up to 65 working days. We’ll keep you updated.
After the investigation, we’ll write a report about what we found. We’ll send copies to you and to a senior manager. We’ll also explain:
- what action we’re going to take
- what you can do if you’re not happy with the outcome
If you are still not happy with your Stage 2 response, then you can ask for your complaint to be looked at by a panel of independent people. You should do this within 20 working days of receiving your Stage 2 response letter.
The review panel will:
- listen to you, and what you want
- look at what the Stage 2 investigation found
- get more information, if needed
- recommend a solution and suggest how we can improve
The panel must meet within 30 days of getting your request.
The panel will meet at a time that works for you. The meeting is usually online, but it can be in person at a suitable location. We’ll tell you the date and location in writing at least 10 days before the meeting and invite you to attend. You can bring your advocate or someone else to support you if you wish.
After the panel, the panel chair will write a report within 5 days of the meeting.
The Director of Children’s Services will then write to you to respond to the panel’s report within 15 days.
Support to make a complaint
Here are some groups that can help you:
Contact information
Before contacting us, please check to see if we can answer your question from our online information.
Write to us:
The Assurance Team, 1st Floor Civic Centre, Darwall Street, Walsall WS1 1TP
Connect to a BSL interpreter
Available on demand Monday to Friday between 9am and 4:30pm
