(AGENPARL) - Roma, 31 Gennaio 2025 - (AGENPARL) – ven 31 gennaio 2025 Welcome to News from the Ombudsman, bringing you the latest information, news and views from the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.
View online [ https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/UKLGO/bulletins/3ccc78c ]
local government and social care ombudsman [ http://www.lgo.org.uk/ ]
*News from the Ombudsman – January 2025*
Welcome…
Welcome to the latest edition of News from the Ombudsman.
In this edition you can read about:
* Our Ombudsman’s thoughts at the beginning of the year
* Our annual report and accounts for 2023-24
* A talk we gave at University of Glasgow
* How we use lessons from our investigations to inform public debate
* What to do if you have a complaint about potholes.
We hope you enjoy reading our newsletter. If you’d like to hear more about the work we do, why not follow us on LinkedIn [ https://www.linkedin.com/company/local-government-ombudsman ]?
*Providing redress and improvement in a changing world*
NL – Amerdeep landscape
2025 is likely to see the start of significant change in councils across the country: the Government is keen to give more power to local areas and to see local authorities reorganise to give a more streamlined approach.
These changes, likely to start becoming visible from 2026 onwards, may change who is responsible for – and provides – the local services on which people rely. We are working to make sure that we can provide a route of redress which covers the planned reform, as it is vital that the Ombudsman continues to be able to oversee these local services. To that end we are discussing our views on the Government’s proposals, and our priorities as laid out in our Triennial Review, with officials across Whitehall departments.
There is also a lot of national discussion on the support provided to children with special educational needs and disabilities, and again we are taking an active role in those conversations to ensure the evidence we see from our casework is considered. We continue to raise the issues we see in Adult Social Care services, and to press our belief that all social care providers – including those who provide services for people who pay for their own social care – need to be legally required to signpost to us.
The amount of work coming to us remains high and we are building on our already excellent efficiency to look at complaints in a timely way. Alongside this we are continuing our work to help the organisations we oversee to manage their complaints effectively: new guides for councils will be issued in the next few months on how they can apply our Complaint Handling Code in a way which best serves local people.
*Amerdeep Somal,*
*Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman*
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Annual report and accounts
Contract agreement [ https://www.lgo.org.uk/information-centre/news/2024/dec/ombudsman-publishes-annual-report-and-accounts-2023-24 ]
We recently laid our Annual Report and Accounts before Parliament for the 2023-24 year.
It is a key document in how we maintain our transparency and make ourselves accountable for our performance, which involves being audited by the National Audit Office.
While, by their nature, annual reports are retrospective documents, our report serves as a useful summary of the challenges and achievements we have seen in the last year.
The 2023-24 period encompassed our 50th year anniversary, and the launch of our first complaint handling code for local authorities. We also had an independent review of our service, which remarked on how efficient and high performing we are, despite having to manage being underfunded.
We hit our longer time targets on completing investigations, but highlighted the biggest challenge being an increasing number of new complaints registered with us, which made it more difficult to assess new investigations as quickly as we would like.
Read the report [ https://www.lgo.org.uk/information-centre/news/2024/dec/ombudsman-publishes-annual-report-and-accounts-2023-24 ]
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Informing Adult Social Care Complaints Research
We recently shared our experience of handling complaints about private social care providers and local authorities at an online workshop hosted by Glasgow University.
the workshop looked at standards for adult social care complaints in Scotland, and was the first in a series with key stakeholders aiming to develop a reformed complaint system in Scotland for handling complaints about social care.
You can read more about how we handle complaints about adult social care in England on our website
Read more [ https://www.lgo.org.uk/adult-social-care/ ]
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Select committee responses
We’ve been really busy over the past few months using the knowledge we gain from our investigations to respond to  government consultations and select committee inquiries. We have responded to the following in the last few months:
* The Housing Communities and Local Government Committee inquiry into Funding and Sustainability of Local Councils
* The Education Committee inquiry into Children’s Social Care
* Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government consultations into:
* Local Audit Reform and
* the Planning Reform Working Paper
* The Law Commission consultation on Disabled Children’s social care law
We respond to consultations and inquiries where we think the learning from our casework can help to shed light on what is going right and wrong in the system, making recommendations and suggestions where appropriate for policy change. This is one of the ways we use our evidence to help improve services for all.
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Potholes driving you potty?
Pothole on fast road
If you are concerned about potholes in your local area which have not been repaired, or believe your car has been damaged by a pothole your council should already have filled, we have a factsheet [ https://www.lgo.org.uk/make-a-complaint/fact-sheets/transport-and-highways/damage-to-property-or-personal-injury-on-highways ]that may be of interest to you.
 We also have other have factsheets on our website to explain what we can and cannot investigate relating to other highways-related services.
Read our factsheets [ https://www.lgo.org.uk/make-a-complaint/fact-sheets ]
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News you may have missed…
* Child with special needs missed months of education because of council bureaucracy [ https://www.lgo.org.uk/information-centre/news/2025/jan/child-with-special-needs-missed-months-of-education-because-of-council-bureaucracy ]
* Somerset failed to act on agreed Ombudsman recommendation [ https://www.lgo.org.uk/information-centre/news/2025/jan/somerset-failed-to-act-on-agreed-ombudsman-recommendation ]
* Essex couple unable to spend as much time as they wanted in final days because of council decision [ https://www.lgo.org.uk/information-centre/news/2025/jan/essex-couple-unable-to-spend-as-much-time-as-they-wanted-in-final-days-because-of-council-decision ]
* Ombudsman investigation finds Brentwood gatekeeping homelessness applications [ https://www.lgo.org.uk/information-centre/news/2025/jan/ombudsman-investigation-finds-brentwood-gatekeeping-homelessness-applications ]
* Luton told to fix benefits backlog by Ombudsman [ https://www.lgo.org.uk/information-centre/news/2024/dec/luton-told-to-fix-benefits-backlog-by-ombudsman ]
* Disabled Worcestershire child had to live in an unsuitable home for far too long because of councils’ errors [ https://www.lgo.org.uk/information-centre/news/2024/dec/disabled-worcestershire-child-had-to-live-in-an-unsuitable-home-for-far-too-long-because-of-councils-errors ]
* Manchester mum had to live in unsafe accommodation for 18 months longer than necessary, Ombudsman says [ https://www.lgo.org.uk/information-centre/news/2024/dec/manchester-mum-had-to-live-in-unsafe-accommodation-for-18-months-longer-than-necessary-ombudsman-says ]
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We look at individual complaints about local public services and all registerable social care providers in England.
We remedy injustice and share learning from investigations to improve services. When we find a council or care provider has done something wrong, we recommend how it should put it right. We are free to use and make our decisions independently.
Find out more about us at www.lgo.org.uk [ http://www.lgo.org.uk/ ]
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