Barnet Council's Family Services is implementing a raft of measures to address a rise in formal complaints, with a particular focus on improving communication and timeliness. The Children and Education Overview and Scrutiny Sub-Committee reviewed a report detailing 67 formal complaints received during the 2025-26 period, an increase from 50 in the previous year.
While the overall number of complaints has risen, the report indicates that professional decision-making remains robust, with 64% of complaints not upheld and only 9% fully upheld. However, a significant challenge identified is the consistency of service experience, particularly concerning communication, timeliness, and the follow-through of agreed actions. Communication and clarity emerged as the largest category of complaints, accounting for 29% of the total.
To tackle these issues, Barnet Council is enhancing its tracking and monitoring of complaints and member inquiries, alongside strengthening escalation processes for cases at risk of delay. A review of local procedures and guidance is also underway to ensure robust processes and consistent complaint handling. The service is also recruiting additional capacity within its complaints team during 2026.
These efforts are part of a broader commitment to improving the timeliness of service actions and follow-through, strengthening recording and assessment quality, and enhancing coordination across teams and agencies – all key service priorities for 2026/27. Furthermore, expectations around communication, recording family views, and explaining professional rationale are being reinforced through management oversight and learning from complaints.
The majority of complaints, 46%, were not resolved within the stipulated timescales. The target for Stage 1 Local Resolution is 10 working days, extendable to 20, and for Stage 2 Independent Investigation, it is 25 working days, extendable to 65. In 2025-26, only 46% of complaints met these timescales, highlighting this as a key area for improvement.
The complaint activity is concentrated in services dealing with high levels of statutory intervention and complexity. These include Duty and Assessment, Intervention and Planning, and Children with Disabilities. The Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH), including REACH and LADO functions, has also seen a notable increase in complaints. These services are responsible for complex areas such as safeguarding assessments, threshold decisions, and child protection planning, where decisions can be urgent and contested by families. Dissatisfaction in these front-line services often relates to the understanding of decisions rather than the decisions themselves.
The most common reasons for complaints that were upheld or partially upheld related to communication, delay, expectation management, service coordination, and the follow-through of agreed actions. These themes align with the identified areas for improvement.
Overall, the report aims to provide assurance that professional decision-making within Family Services is robust, with the primary challenge being the consistency of service delivery and communication experienced by families. The council is committed to strengthening quality assurance through dip sampling and thematic reviews, as well as enhancing reporting and organisational learning to improve governance and oversight arrangements. The development of the complaints function is ongoing to bolster resilience and capacity.
The Family Services Annual Report on User Experience, Insight and Statutory Feedback for 2025-26 can be found within the Public reports pack for the 08th October 2026 Children and Education Overview and Scrutiny Sub-Committee meeting.