6.1 Complaints

Complaints about individual practitioners or agencies should be dealt with according to the complaints procedure of that discipline or agency.

However this procedure applies if parents, carers or children/young people wish to complain about the following:

• the process of a Child Protection Conference
• the conclusion the conference reached regarding the primary cause of concern leading to the child being made the subject of a Child Protection Plan
• the decision for the child to become, not to become or to cease to be the subject of a Child Protection Plan.

Such complaints should be dealt with in accordance with the Children’s Social Care Complaints Process - “Getting the Best from Complaints – Social Care Complaints and Representations for Children, Young People and Others”.

These complaints should be directed to the Independent Conference Chair who will inform the Complaints Manager and the Service Manager, Safeguarding and Quality Assurance.

Every effort will be made to resolve the matter informally (Stage One, “Local Resolution”).

This may be easily achieved and/or may result in the Child Protection Conference being reconvened and/or the involvement of the Service Manager, Safeguarding and Quality Assurance.

If the matter cannot be resolved in this way the complainant should be invited to request that the complaint be independently investigated (Stage Two). The complainant should then receive a response, following the investigation, within a maximum of 65 working days.

If the complainant remains dissatisfied they can request that the matter is considered by an Inter-Agency Panel made up of senior representatives from the Oxfordshire Safeguarding Children Board member agencies. The Panel should consider whether the relevant inter-agency protocols and procedures have been correctly observed and whether the decision that is being complained about is reasonable.

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