Complaints, comments and compliments
How to tell us what you think about our services - good or bad.
Children's services
If you are a child or young person and receive care or a service from Oxfordshire County Council and are unhappy with your worker or the care or service you receive, you have the right to complain about it. You won’t be treated unfairly because of something you have said. Use the form below to tell us what you think.
Why make a comment, compliment or complaint?
You have the right to be treated fairly and with respect and to make your own choices whenever possible. If you are unhappy about the service or care you receive from us, it’s very important you let someone know. The good and bad things we hear can help us improve our services.
When you contact us, we will:
- take everything you have to say seriously
- help you resolve any complaints as quickly as possible
- use what you tell us to improve our services
- not discriminate against you in any way
- get back to you as quickly as we can.
What happens when you make a complaint?
Once you contact us to make your complaint, we will ensure we respond within three days. We usually contact you to find out more about your complaint and advise on how we will work with you to resolve it.
We have three stages to our complaints process.
Stage 1 – local resolution
This is very similar to stage 1 of our corporate process. An appropriate manager within the service you are complaining about will investigate your concerns and provide a written response within 10 working days. If you are unhappy with the response, contact the Customer Feedback team. You should do this within 20 working days from the date you received your Stage 1 response.
You will need to explain why you are still unhappy and what you would like to happen to put things right. You can request to escalate your complaint to stage 2. However, we will aim to resolve your complaint in the first stage of the process wherever possible.
Stage 2 - formal investigation stage
If you still do not think your complaint has been resolved, you can request to progress to Stage 2. For us to do this, you need to tell the member of staff dealing with your complaint that you are still unhappy and want to take things further or contact us directly.
We will ensure that your complaint is investigated fully and fairly.
When the investigation has been completed, we will contact you with the results and tell you of any action that will be taken. You may also be invited to come and talk with us to discuss the response.
Stage 3 - review panel stage
You can request for your complaint to be reviewed at Stage 3 if you remain unsatisfied with our response.
We will set up a panel of three independent people who will review the Stage 2 investigation. They will report to the Head of Children's Social Care, who will consider carefully if there is more that could be done to resolve the complaint.
You will receive a copy of a panel report and the Head of Children's Social Care’s response within 20 days of the panel.
Taking things further
If you feel unhappy with how we handled your complaint, you can speak to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman. It is their job to investigate complaints about councils and other organisations in a fair and independent way.
Someone to speak for you
Anyone can help as long as they have your permission.
If you are unhappy or worried about your care, you can speak directly to your carer, social worker, or Oxfordshire County Council can provide you with someone whose job is to listen to you, help you get your message across and make sure that others listen to you too – they are called advocates. Find out more about advocacy or finding someone to speak for you.
Complaints about Child Protection Conferences
The council has a separate process for complaints about Child Protection Conferences. This is for complaints about the management of the conference, the decision about the category or harm or professionals' contributions, performance or provisions of services.