Earlier this month, the government published the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill which looks to give local authorities more power over what happens in their areas. Alongside local government reorganisation this is likely to result in some of the biggest changes in the local authority sector in the 50 years since the Ombudsman was first created.

We are working to understand what these changes mean for our service and power to investigate complaints. We understand it can be hard for the public to navigate various public services when they need help, and we want to make sure we are properly equipped to continue investigating complaints about local authority services.

Our annual review of local government complaints was also published this month. This highlighted the increasing number of complaints coming to us, which have exceeded 20,000 for the first time. Complaints about education and children’s services continue to dominate our casework and complaints about housing services are now the second largest category of complaints we deal with, overtaking complaints about adult social care.

This demonstrates the enormous pressures local authorities are under, but despite this I was pleased to note that compliance with our recommendations remains high. Local authorities complied with recommendations we made in 99.7% of cases. This demonstrates the sector’s commitment to redress and improvement and the importance of good governance and leadership within complaint handling.

At the heart of good service delivery and complaint handling is good administrative practice. Earlier this year we reissued our Principles of Good Administrative practice which we use as a benchmark for the standards we expect when we investigate complaints. These set out in plain language, what we expect to see from sound administration, and we will continue to encourage local authorities to use these during the forthcoming period of significant change in the sector as a guide to delivering good services to local people.

Amerdeep Somal

Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman

Last month we published a series of reports and guides looking at the disproportionate challenges faced by Disabled people when accessing councils’ housing and homelessness services.

With many councils, particularly in London, struggling to meet the rising demand for housing support, some Disabled people are being pushed further to the margins. The report, called “Access Denied”, draws on real-life complaints we have investigated to show the additional barriers Disabled people can – and do – face.

The report follows the stories of three people – drawn from a range of cases – as they navigate a council’s homelessness, housing allocations, and adaptations services.

The good practice guides we published covered homelessness, housing allocations and adaptations for Disabled people.

We also hosted a webinar for more than 100 council officers who work in housing and adult social care departments across the country to talk about the campaign and give officers the opportunity to ask questions on the topic.

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Last week we called for the statutory complaints process for cases involving children to be urgently reviewed because we question whether it properly serves the children it is designed to help.

This follows the publication of separate investigation reports into the way two London councils – Lewisham and Harrow – have handled complaints.

The 20-year-old children’s complaints process involves three distinct stages, and councils often tell us the process is overly complex, costly to run and does not always deliver good outcomes for the children at the heart of the complaints.

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A homeless Hounslow mother has been provided with a new home after the council agreed with our investigation into her case, having initially rejected our recommendations.

Following a report, published in April, into the woman’s complaint that she was left to sofa surf while pregnant by London Borough of Hounslow, we recommended the council apologise and pay her a sum for her distress, which the council agreed to do.

However, at the time the council did not agree to offer the woman the next suitable two-bedroomed property that became available.

We are pleased local scrutiny and the ombudsman system has worked as intended and the council has now agreed to provide the accommodation, after the Leader of the council overturned its initial decision.

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