Complaints to LGO level despite transfer of responsibility for social housing reviews as social care and education complaints rise

The number of complaints made to the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) has remained constant despite the transfer of social housing complaints to the Housing Ombudsman, the organisation’s annual report has revealed.

In the year to March 2015, the Ombudsman received more than 11,000 complaints, of which 4780 were accepted for investigation.

Writing in the foreword to the report, the Ombudsman, Dr Jane Martin, said that the number of complaints in recent years had not risen as much as anticipated in the wake of local government spending cuts, but that the “trend of increasing volumes of complaints about education and children’s services and adult social care continues.”

“Local authorities face challenging questions about the quality of service provision, capacity to properly resource support for vulnerable and needy communities and to protect children.”

The LGO also said that it was handling complaints more quickly, despite a sharp reduction in permanent staff from 228 to 158. Eighty-three per cent of cases were completed within 13 weeks, 94% within 26 weeks and 99% within 12 months.