People who have been treated poorly by their local council are all too often having their situations made worse when their council delays putting things right.
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has found that more than 1-in-5 “remedies” by councils are being implemented later than agreed.
“This means that people, who have already gone through the process of complaining to their local authority, and then to the Ombudsman, are waiting even longer for things to be put right,” the Ombudsman says.
And nearly 60% of all authorities against whom a remedy was required have a late compliance registered against them.
The Ombudsman’s report also details how it is now upholding 80% of the investigations it carries out, up from 74% in 2022-2023.
The Ombudsman is also calling on the new Labour government for immediate action to address “systemic” problems in providing services for young people with SEND – special educational needs and disabilities.
Poor SEND services are now “dominating” the Ombudsman’s casework, according to its annual review.
The Ombudsman is calling on the government to “get a strong and comprehensive grip” on the issue, which presents an “existential threat” to councils that provide children’s services.
Send provision accounted for a quarter (26%) of all complaints the service received in 2023-2024, and 42% of upheld complaints.
First findings: lawyer Amerdeep Somal was appointed as Local Government Ombudsman last year
The Ombudsman found fault in 92% of the education cases it investigated, and says “the numbers are increasing rapidly”.
In Amerdeep Somal’s first annual review as Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, she said: “What we’re seeing in the majority of cases isn’t a lack of care or an inability to take responsibility for what has gone wrong, but a sector struggling to cope.
“Councils want to comply with our recommendations, accept responsibility when things go wrong, and provide good services to residents, and our 99.5% compliance rate indicates this is the case. But all too often resources and finances prevent them from doing so as swiftly as they should.
“However, there are a small number of councils that seem unwilling to respond to our investigations as we expect them to, and we have had to tell those councils that we will issue a witness summons for them to provide information that should otherwise be forthcoming.
“Regardless of the reason for the delays in responding, the impact is the same on the people at the centre of the complaints and councils risk losing the opportunity to restore faith when things have gone wrong.
“I urge those few councils that do not talk to us and engage in the process to get on board to benefit their local residents. The service improvement recommendations we make are practical steps that should be in the gift of local authorities to put in place. If councils are unable to implement them in the timescales we require, they should let us know before they agree to them.”
Croydon Council had a total of 186 complaints filed to the Ombudsman in 2023-2024, according to figures in the review: 30 in respect of adult social care, 23 for benefits and tax, nine “corporate and other”, 22 on education and children’s services, 19 on “environmental services, public protection and regulation”, 21 for highways and transport, 48 for housing and 12 for planning and development.
For comparison, the Ombudsman received 154 complaints about Bromley (where one-third, 52, related to education and children’s services), 249 for Lambeth (116 complaints about housing), 72 in total for Merton, 175 for Southwark and 77 for Sutton.
The number of complaints upheld by the Ombudsman against Croydon Council, 42, was down from the 2022-2023 figure (57), but more than the 41 in 2021-2022.
Click here for the Ombudsman’s published decisions on Croydon complaints in 2023-2024. None of these rulings have ever been published on Croydon Council’s website.
According to the Ombudsman, overall complaints about housing and homelessness made up 16% of casework, with 84% of investigations upheld, “a situation particularly acute in London”.
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