Childrens Complaints

Please be advised that all Isle of Wight children's social care complaints are dealt with by the Hampshire County Council complaints team.

Please view the web page provided by Hampshire County Council which explains how to make a complaint to Children Services about a department or service. You will need to make your complaint using the instructions and online forms provided by Hampshire County Council. If you have any concerns about making a complaint or need further advice, please email: childrens.services@hants.gov.uk or call 0300 555 1384.

If you wish to make a complaint against a school please refer to the individual schools complaints process, this can usually be found on each of the individual schools websites. View our School Contact web page. Please be advised that the Isle of Wight Council cannot get involved with complaints about our schools.  Find out more about the school complaints procedure.

The Children’s Education Services Department is responsible for a range of services provided to children, young people and their parents or carers such as:

• Early Years
• Special Educational Needs (SEN)
• School Transport
• School Admissions 
• Education & Inclusion (Education Welfare Service)
• Home Education
• Virtual School
• Island Futures

Children’s Education Services are only required to deal with complaints about events that happened within the last 12 months. However, you can contact the Complaints Team via email SandLBusinessSupport@iow.gov.uk or call 01983 821000 extension 6260 or 6907 for advice if your complaint is outside this timescale.

You can make a complaint online.

If you have any concerns about making a complaint or need further advice, please complete our online send us a message form .

Please do not use the contact details provided in the 'contact tab' because these contact details are for complaints raised against Children Social Services.

You will receive an acknowledgement by email within 3 working days.  If you haven't received and acknowledgement within 3 days please contact us.

Your complaint will be investigated by the manager responsible for the relevant department.  They have 20 working days to carry out their investigation and respond to you. If you are dissatisfied with the outcome of your response, you have 14 days in which to make contact with us again and explain why.  Your complaint will then be escalated to stage two of the complaints process and will be investigated by the Service Manager; they also have 20 working days in which to investigate and respond to you.

If your complaint remains unresolved, you have the right to raise this with the Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) who will consider whether your complaint has followed and exhausted the complaints process. Please be aware that the LGSCO will not investigate the individual aspects of your complaint.