Complaints down but investigations and remedies up: LGO Annual Review

Complaints to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGO) fell by 4% to 16,899 in 2018/19, but cases brought forward for investigation rose by 5% and remedies issued jumped by 11% as complaints become more complex according to the Ombudsman’s Annual Review of Complaints.

The Ombudsman noted that there had been a 20% increase on the number of acceptable remedies offered by local authorities through their own complaints processes before matters were referred up to the LGO as more clear-cut cases were being dealt with at local level. This meant, the report said, that the nature of cases being investigated by the LGO were becoming more complex.

More than a third of complaints were about Children and Education Services, and Adult Social Care. Of particular concern, the LGO Michael King noted, was the rise in complaints about delays in Education, Health and Social Care Plans leading to children missing out on education they were entitled to.

There was a 5% rise in detailed investigations carried out (4234 compared with 4020) and, overall, the LGO upheld 58% of the cases it investigated, 1% more than the previous year. Complaints about benefits and tax were most likely to be upheld (69%), while planning and development related issues were least likely at 37%.

Of the 2456 complaints upheld, 1929 led to remedies being recommended to the authorities concerned – a rise of 11% on 2017-18.

This year the Ombudsman has published the council compliance rate with its recommendations for the first time. Local authorities are not legally obliged to implement Ombudsman recommendations, but of the 3,525 recommendations made to local authorities, 99.4% were complied with and no formal incidents of non-compliance were recorded. However, 8% of recommendations were implemented late and the Ombudsman was not happy with the council’s implementation in 1% of cases.

The LGO Michael King said: “I welcome the constructive way in which the large majority of authorities work with us to remedy injustices and to take steps to improve services for others. There were no formal incidents of non-compliance from authorities to our recommendations last year – a great sign of the sector’s openness and willingness to put things right quickly. Indeed, we have seen the number of cases where authorities have offered a suitable remedy during their local complaints process, before the complaint came to us, increase by a fifth on last year.

“The positive impact of the remedies we recommend often spreads beyond the individual that brought the complaint. This report highlights some of the landmark cases we have completed where our remedy and the positive response from the authority has resulted in significant improvements to local services.”

The Ombudsman has also launched a new interactive map which shows how individual local authorities are performing, The new map collates the annual letters the Ombudsman sends to each local authority, how often they have complied with Ombudsman recommendations, the improvements they have agreed to implement, and published decisions all in one place. The map can be viewed at http://www.lgo.org.uk/your-councils-performance.

A PDF copy of the report can be downloade from https://www.lgo.org.uk/assets/attach/5655/LG%20Review%20-%20FINAL.pdf