Decision report 201205163

Summary

Ms C complained to the council that her child's school did not follow procedures for dealing with bullying and did not respond to parents' concerns about her child being bullied. She said that the council did not ensure that anti-bullying policies and procedures were in place and being followed by the school. The council had not upheld her complaints about this and she also considered that the council had not responded to, or adequately investigated, these.

We upheld all Ms C's complaints. Our investigation found that the council had a comprehensive and detailed policy but had not ensured that the school were following this, as the school did not have their own policy as the council required. There was also little evidence of logging bullying incidents as required and, when the school revisited their decision about adopting a school policy, attempts to engage parents were not effective. We also found that, in handling the complaint, the council did not refer to the complaints handling procedure and its stages and did not record or communicate the outcomes of a meeting held with Ms C to investigate and resolve the complaint.

Recommendations

We recommended that the council:

• apologise for failing to ensure that appropriate anti-bullying policy and procedures were followed by the school;
• consider how they monitor the implementation of the anti-bullying policy and take an active role in ensuring meaningful engagement with parents, pupils and staff on anti-bullying strategies; and
• apologise for not handling and investigating the complaint adequately.