School admissions complaints up by 50 per cent say Ombudsmen in annual report
Archived press release
Date Published: 15/07/09
There was a substantial increase in complaints about school admissions made to the Local Government Ombudsmen in 2008/09.
There was a substantial increase in complaints about school admissions made to the Local Government Ombudsmen (LGOs) in the last year. In their Annual Report 2008/09 published today (15 July 2009) the LGOs highlight the 50 per cent increase to 1,422 from 942 in 2007/08.
Ombudsman Tony Redmond, Chairman of the Commission for Local Administration in England, says “We issued reports on a substantial number of cases where we found significant fault with the handling of admission applications or appeals, some breaching the statutory codes.” A case study in the Report illustrates some of the problems the LGOs encounter.
The Annual Report – Delivering public value – describes 2008/09 as a year of significant change in the organisation and operation of the LGO’s service, starting with the launch of the new LGO Advice Team. The Advice Team takes all new complaints and enquiries, and has made a considerable impact on increasing access to our service as well as improving the timeliness of our decisions. Our new team of advisers handle nearly 6,000 contacts every month, well in excess of the anticipated level. Planning and housing continue to be the biggest areas of complaint. The overall numbers of LGO decisions has changed following the introduction of the Advice Team, and more is said about that in the Report.
Other developments over the year include:
- planning for the potential extension of the LGOs jurisdiction into two new areas in the coming year – complaints about internal management of schools, and about private sector adult social care self funders;
- delivering 128 training courses in complaint handling for local authority staff; and
- jointly with the Health Service Ombudsman, issuing a high-profile report entitled Six Lives, that illustrated significant and distressing failures in service across both health and social care, leading to situations in which people with learning disabilities experienced prolonged suffering and inappropriate care.
The report is published at the same time as the annual reviews on every local authority in England. The reviews provide a summary of information on the complaints about each council that the LGO has received and, where possible, draw any lessons learned on an authority’s performance and complaint-handling arrangements. All reviews are on the LGO website at www.lgo.org.uk/CouncilsPerformance/