Make a complaint about a children's social care service

If you're concerned about a child or young person and think they may need help, you can report a child safeguarding concern online. 

If the child is in immediate danger, phone 999.

We welcome all compliments, comments and complaints about children's social care as they provide valuable information about ways we can improve our services.

We aim to provide good quality services, but we need your help, telling us what we're doing well and where we can improve.

Get in touch

You can get in touch by:

  • email: sccm@medway.gov.uk
  • phone: 01634 333 036
  • text: 07712 391 459
  • writing to Complaints Manager for Social Care, Customer and Business Support, Medway Council, Gun Wharf, Dock Road, Chatham, ME4 4TR
  • contacting the Young Lives Foundation on 01622 683 815 to ask someone to help you make a complaint.

Our commitment to you

We'll:

  • help you make your complaint
  • listen to you and take your concerns seriously
  • treat you fairly and with respect
  • manage your complaint confidentially
  • investigate your complaint as soon as possible
  • send you a written response.

If we get something wrong, we'll:

  • apologise and explain what happened and why
  • try to ensure that it does not happen again
  • learn from your complaint
  • apply proportionate remedies to try to put you back in a position you would have been in, had the mistake not happened. 

Complaints eligibility

You can make a complaint about:

  • a decision that was unfair or if you feel badly treated
  • the quality of the service if you're unhappy
  • if you were refused service 
  • a service not being provided on time
  • disagreeing with an assessment
  • if your views were not listened to
  • the attitude or behaviour of our staff
  • how eligibility and assessment criteria was applied
  • the impact on the child or young person of a local authority policy
  • quality concerns of an assessment or a review.

Who can complain

The Children Act 1989 Representation Procedure (England) Regulations 2006 states that the following people can complain:

  • any child or young person (or a parent or person with parental responsibility for the child) looked after by the local authority, or is receiving services from us
  • any parent or person with parental responsibility for the child
  • any local authority foster carer (including those caring for children placed through independent fostering agencies)
  • children who have left care
  • special guardians
  • a child or young person (or parent of the child) to whom a special guardian order is in force
  • any person who has applied for an assessment
  • any child or young person who may be adopted, and their parents
  • persons wishing to adopt a child
  • such other person as the local authority consider has sufficient interest in the child or young person’s welfare to make a complaint on their behalf.

Children’s complaints procedure

How we will deal with your complaint

We'll acknowledge your complaint within 3 working days of receiving your complaint. 

We'll tell you if:

  • we accept your complaint
  • it will be dealt with as a statutory or non-statutory social care complaint
  • the issues you have told us about should be considered through a different process. 

Stage 1

Your complaint will be sent to the manager responsible for the service you have concerns about. They aim to respond to you within 10 to 20 working days, but sometimes we need more time to investigate complex complaints. We'll keep you informed and let you know if this is likely to take longer. 

Most complaints are resolved at this stage. If you're unhappy with our response at stage 1, you can ask us to consider your complaint at stage 2. 

You have 20 working days to do this. Before moving to stage 2, we'll see if there is anything more that could be done to resolve your complaint and may arrange a meeting with you to understand how we can resolve the issues.

Stage 2

Your complaint will be handled by an officer who works for Medway Council and an independent person who does not work for the council.

Both the independent person and independent officer will visit you to discuss the complaint. They have 25 to 65 working days to investigate your complaint and write their reports.

Their reports are sent to the Assistant Director of Children’s Social Care who will write to you within 15 working days of receiving the reports about the findings and recommendations from the stage 2 investigation.

If you're still unhappy with the outcome of your complaint, you have 20 working days to tell us.

Stage 3

A panel of 3 independent people, who do not work for Medway Council, will review the way your complaint was handled and make recommendations to the Director of People.

The Director will consider the panel’s recommendations and write to you within 15 working days from the time of receiving the panel’s report.

This is the end of Medway Council’s complaints process but if you still remain dissatisfied about how your complaint was handled and/or the outcome, you can complain to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman looks at individual complaints about councils, social care providers including care homes and home care agencies and other organisations providing local pubic services. It will investigate matters fairly and impartially and is free to use. 

There are some matters the Ombudsman cannot or will not investigate. In these cases, it will clearly explain the reason for this decision.