CMs - If you've ever complained to OFSTED (about them, not another CM).........

[looneytune]

Have you ever had to take it to the Adjustication service or further?

Nope, never have complained to that level - yet!

What are your concerns? Depending on the nature of the complaint, you may get invited to an Ofsted office for a meeting to discuss it. You then could take it to the Care Standards Tribunal. It is useful to look through their past rulings, to get a feel for how they operate.

We've done a lot of research already, was just curious if anyone had and if so, how it's gone.

You know what this is about, I made the complaint and they received it back on 3rd Sept. They've made a category of errors which are totally against their own 'complaints procedure' and I've had legal advice saying we could do something about this. I actually just want to work with them to sort things out but they've now had our SIXTH letter of complaint and I've given them until next Wed to reply otherwise we're referring it to the Adjudication service!! Just wondered if they are usually this rubbish!

You have my sympathy for the stress, delay and general rubbishness of the whole situation. To be honest the beginning of September was not the best time to make a complaint (not that you could really control that!) because Ofsted have just had a nationwide reorganisation and whole teams/departments have shifted around and been restructured, half the staff have left or changed jobs and new people been hired who don't really know what they're doing. The people who investigate complaints made about Ofsted are the senior managers and they're probably firefighting the internal chaos; add in the several big "Ofsted are rubbish" media stories over the past few months and I'm not surprised things are getting missed and delayed.

That all in no way excuses them for failing to process your complaint properly and communicate with you; but might go some way to explaining things. Keep records and copies of everything so you can document the failings should you need to and don't be afraid to chase things up - squeaky wheels, etc!

That's interesting!!! But to be honest, it no way excuses stuff they've published that they REALLY shouldn't have done!! It's a long story but what they've done could have caused massive problems for my business if I was struggling for work. Still, very interesting about the re-org!

By the way, how do you know about the re-org etc?