Rise in complaints made about Slough children's services

Each year, the company that runs children's services in the town, Slough Children First, must report on its performance to the Borough Council.

The report contains the number of complaints made about children's services in 2023/24, with 176 complaints being made during the year.

That's a significant increase on the previous years, with 152 being made in 2021/22 and 131 in 2022/23.

Of the 176 complaints made 23 (13 per cent) were made by children and young people themselves.

Remarkably, 11 complaints were made on behalf of the child and their family by an MP (many of which were made by Tan Dhesi, the Labour MP for Slough), and seven complaints were raised by councillors.

The report states that a number of the complaints were focused on the attitude and behaviour of staff, particularly with poor communication between social workers and the young people or families and staff not being accessible by emails or calls.

The reasons complaints were made to Slough Children First and stage of escalation 2023/24. (Image: Slough Children First)

The complaints figures were acknowledged during a meeting of Slough Borough Council's corporate improvement scrutiny committee.

Councillor Dhruv Tomar (Conservative, Slough Central) queried what improvements could be made to address complaints around communication.

He said: "Most of them are related to how the staff communicate with children.

"Are there any improvements in there?"

Sue Butcher, the chief executive of Slough Children First and the director of children’s services at the council said: "I have various lines of sight into practice and as the director of children's services, I need to have a helicopter view, and complaints certainly give me that helicopter view of what is happening that is not working on the ground.

"There is a set complaints procedure for children's services nationally, and we do have our own complaints officer.

Sue Butcher (furthest to the right), Director of Children’s Services and Chief Executive of Slough Children First. (Image: Slough Borough Council)

"Communication with children and young people is something we do get complaints about.

"Sometimes it is about giving messages that people might not want to receive, that particularly might go for parents.

"Although nobody really welcomes a complaint, we accept complaints as a necessary part of our quality assurance progress.

"When we have a trend, we would look at how we build that into our training and development programme, to make sure that practitioners improve their practice, so there is a learning cycle."

None of the complaints made were escalated to Stage 3 or were investigated by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, which can award compensation and recommend actions to rectify disputes.

The report on Slough Children First was delivered to the council's corporate improvement scrutiny committee meeting on Tuesday, October 29.

The company was established in 2015 as Slough Children's Services Trust, and became Slough Children First in March 2021.