Decision Report 201304276

Summary

Following previous complaints, Mrs C had continued to have concerns about how her child's primary school had dealt with new disciplinary matters and incidents of bullying. When she complained to the council, she said they had again not dealt with her complaints adequately, not ensured an impartial investigation, and not responded appropriately to her communications.

Our investigation found that the complaints had been appropriately investigated under the council's two-stage complaints handling procedure, with the school's head teacher initially responding to her complaints. When Mrs C remained dissatisfied, the council escalated her complaints to the next stage for which they had appointed an independent person, a retired schools inspector, to conduct the investigation. Mrs C had expressed concern that as the independent person had previously worked with the head teacher, they could not be impartial. We found no evidence, however, to suggest that the investigation was not conducted in an independent and impartial way.