Make a complaint about children and families service

Find out what to do if you’re not satisfied with the children and families service you’ve received.

What to do if you’re not satisfied

If you’re not happy with the service you’ve received, speak to someone in the team you’re working with, or their manager. You might be able to resolve the problem by talking to them.

If you can’t resolve the problem by talking to them, you can make a formal complaint.

If you are not looking for a response to a complaint but want to share feedback to help us improve our service, you can tell us about your experience of children and families service.

How to make a formal complaint

To make a formal complaint about children and families service , email children.complaints@hackney.gov.uk or you can call us on 020 8356 5800.

If you cannot make the complaint by yourself, then a relative, friend or another representative can help you.

Tell us:

• the details of your complaint
• what you’d like us to do to fix the problem, for example do something better or make an apology

A manager in the team you’re working with will look into your complaint and provide a response.

If you’re not satisfied with our response

If you’re not happy with our response, contact the complaints team again and let us know what part of the response you’re not happy with and why.

Your complaint will then be investigated by:

• a senior manager in children and families service who is not involved in your case
• an external, independent professional whose role is to oversee the investigation

When they have finished their investigation we will write to you with a response.

If you’re still not satisfied

If you’re still not happy, contact us within 20 days and explain what part of the response you’re unhappy about and why.

Then, you will be invited to a review meeting with a panel of 3 independent people who will review the complaint investigation. If you like, you can ask a relative, friend or other representative to come with you for support or to speak for you.

The panel will consider whether the investigation was fair, thorough and appropriate.

The panel will then send their findings and any recommendations to you and the Director of the Children and Families Service. The director will then send you a letter with their final decision.

What to do if you’re not satisfied with the outcome

If you are still not happy with our response, you can take your complaint to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman. This is an independent body that investigates complaints about social care. You can contact them at any time but they usually expect us to complete our consideration of your complaint before they will look at it.

If they agree that we haven’t dealt with your complaint properly, they can recommend how we can put things right.

Support for children and young people

If you’re a child or young person and you want to make a complaint, you can get help from an independent Children’s Rights Officer (CRO). You can find out more about Children Rights Officers.

You can ask someone in the team you’re working with to speak to a CRO on your behalf, or you can contact them yourself by emailing childrensrights@hackney.gov.uk or calling 020 8356 2444.