Councillors and MPs This page helps Councillors and MPs understand what to do, if they want to help somebody use our service or make a complaint themselves. What complaints can the Ombudsman investigate? We can investigate complaints about most council services. This includes services that councils pay other organisations to deliver (usually called outsourced or commissioned services). We can inv ...

Manual for Councils Contents: Chapter index for Manual for Councils Updated: 09 September 2025 Manual for Councils search Search this content Submit search Part 10 • Duty to report our decisions to elected officials Duty to report our decisions to elected officials If we make a finding of fault, councils and some authorities have a duty to report that finding to elected officials. However, the re ...

Lancashire County Council criticised for failing to support vulnerable children properly Lancashire County Council has been criticised by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman for not providing the right support for two vulnerable siblings when they moved to live with their aunt and uncle. The siblings, who had a turbulent background and had spent time in foster care, became subject to a ...

Ombudsman investigation highlights councils’ recruitment problems The problems faced by councils in recruiting educational psychologists have been highlighted in an investigation report by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman. The report, which upholds a North Yorkshire mother’s complaint about delays by the county council in meeting her son’s Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan, has ...

Ombudsman investigation reveals 170 delayed complaints in Kent A Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman investigation has uncovered a backlog of 170 unanswered children’s services and education complaints in Kent. The Ombudsman was asked to investigate after Kent County Council failed to respond to a mother’s complaint that her son had not been provided with the Speech and Language Therapy (S ...

Ombudsman investigation highlights housing delays in Birmingham The high number of families trying to join councils’ housing lists is being highlighted by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman following one family’s complaint about their situation. The family told the Ombudsman that Birmingham City Council took too long to assess their circumstances. During the Ombudsman’s investigation ...

Surrey boy with special needs spent too long in inappropriate school Surrey County Council took 15 months too long to issue a disabled boy’s Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan, and unfairly limited his father’s ability to chase for updates, a Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman investigation has found. The boy, who has significant Special Educational Needs (SEN), spent too long in a sch ...

Notts mum should be refunded nursery charges following Ombudsman investigation Nottinghamshire County Council has been told to repay a mum half the additional charges she paid for nearly two years because it did not properly oversee a nursery’s charging policy. The child should have received 30 hours a week free under the national free early education entitlement scheme, but the mum complained sh ...

Councils can investigate parents’ complaints without consent of minors Lancashire County Council has agreed to apologise to a father after it told him it could not investigate his children’s services complaint without the consent of his son. The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has said parents have a right to complain, the council has a legal obligation to consider a complaint and it d ...

Post Decision Review (PDR) and Service Complaints Manual Contents: Chapter index for Post Decision Review (PDR) and Service Complaints Manual Updated: 01 June 2024 Post Decision Review (PDR) and Service Complaints Manual search Search this content Submit search Part 8 • 8. Handling review requests of Joint Working (JW) decisions where the case was separated at Assessment 8. Handling review reques ...