Brighton & Hove City Council
Complaint overview
Between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we dealt with 141 complaints. Of these, 33 were not for us or not ready for us to investigate. We assessed and closed 83 complaints. We investigated 25 complaints.
More about this data
Complaints dealt with – the total number of complaints and enquiries considered. It is not appropriate to investigate all of them.
Not for us – includes complaints brought to us before the council was given chance to consider it, or the complainant came to the wrong Ombudsman.
Assessed and closed – includes complaints where the law says we’re not allowed to investigate, or it would be a poor use of public funds if we did.
Investigated – we completed an investigation and made a decision on whether we found fault, or no fault.
Complaints upheld – we completed an investigation and found evidence of fault, or the organisation provided a suitable remedy early on.
Satisfactory remedies provided by the Council – the council upheld the complaint and we agreed with how it offered to put things right.
Compliance with Ombudsman recommendations – not complying with our recommendations is rare. A council with a compliance rate below 100% should scrutinise the complaints where it failed to comply and identify any learning.
Average performance rates – we compare the annual statistics of similar types of councils to work out an average level of performance. We do this for County Councils, District Councils, Metropolitan Boroughs, Unitary Councils, and London Boroughs.
For more information on understanding our statistics see Interpreting our complaints data.
Complaints dealt with
Not for us
Assessed and closed
Investigated
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Complaints upheld
We investigated 25 complaints and upheld 15.
60% of complaints we investigated were upheld.
This compares to an average of 80% in similar authorities.
View upheld decisionsAdjusted for Brighton & Hove City Council's population, this is 5.4% upheld decisions per 100,000 residents.
The average for authorities of this type is
5.3% upheld decisions per 100,000 residents. -
Satisfactory remedies provided by the Council
In 1 out of 15 upheld cases we found the Council had provided a satisfactory remedy before the complaint reached the Ombudsman.
7% satisfactory remedy rate.
This compares to an average of 10% in similar authorities.
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Compliance with Ombudsman recommendations
We recorded compliance outcomes in 11 cases.
In 11 cases we were satisfied with the actions taken.100% compliance rate with recommendations.
This compares to an average of 100% in similar authorities.
Annual letters
We write to councils each year to give a summary of the complaint statistics we record about them,
and their performance in responding to our investigations.
Reports
The Ombudsman has published the following reports against Brighton & Hove City Council
Find out more about reports
We issue reports on certain investigations, particularly where there is a wider public interest to do so. Common reasons for reports are significant injustice, systemic issues, major learning points and non-compliance with our recommendations. Issuing reports is one way we help to ensure councils are accountable to local people and highlighting the learning from complaints helps to improve services for everybody. Reports are published for 10 years.
Council told woman with dementia to change care home when her money ran out
Brighton and Hove City Council told a woman’s family she would have to move to a cheaper care home when her money ran out, without assessing whether moving would harm her, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has found.
Council places woman and autistic son in flat below nuisance neighbour
A mother and her autistic son were caused severe distress after they were placed in temporary accommodation below a neighbour who had previous warnings for anti-social behaviour, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has found.
Service improvements
The Council has agreed to make the following improvements to its services following an Ombudsman investigation.
Find out more about service improvements
When we find fault, we can recommend improvements to systems and processes where they haven’t worked properly, so that others do not suffer from these same problems in future. Common examples are policy changes; procedural reviews; and staff training. Service improvements from decisions are published for 5 years and those from reports are published for 10 years.
The latest 10 cases are listed below – click ‘view all’ to find all service improvements.
Case reference: 23 018 882
Category: Education
Sub Category: Alternative provision
- The Council should send written reminders to relevant staff of the Council’s responsibilities under Section 19 of the Education Act when it is made aware a child is not attending school. With these reminders, it should share a copy of our “Out of school, out of sight? focus report, highlighting key points to ensure officers are aware of the factors they should consider when a request for alternative provision is made.
Case reference: 23 016 795
Category: Benefits and tax
Sub Category: Council tax
- Explain what it will do to ensure that correct exemptions and discounts are applied at the earliest convenience.
Case reference: 23 013 772
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Homelessness
- The Council has agreed to remind staff of the guidance for closing cases due to non-engagement
- The Council will remind staff of its responsibility to provide interim accommodation at the outset, and when 'homeless at home' arrangements may be suitable for an applicant and the correct process to follow, if there is reason to believe an application may be in priority need.
Case reference: 23 013 280
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Other
- The Council has committed to create a transport policy for adult social care uses and remind officers to complete annual reviews and transport assessments when needed.
Case reference: 23 011 982
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Assessment and care plan
- Within three months of the date of my final decision statement the Council agreed to:Review its market shaping and commissioning procedures for community adult social care providers to minimise delays in sourcing care providers. It will ensure it has processes in place to meet its duties as set out in the Care Act 2014 and associated statutory guidance.
Case reference: 23 004 931
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council has agreed to review its record keeping procedures to ensure officers keep a clear record of their decisions about whether education provision is accessible to a child out of school and whether it owes a duty under Section 19 of the Education Act 1996 to make alternative education provision.
Case reference: 23 006 942
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- Consider what went wrong in this case and whether there are any changes the Council could make to its procedures to ensure it takes steps sooner to put in place the provision in an Education, Health and Care plan following a decision from the First-tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability).
Case reference: 23 004 544
Category: Education
Sub Category: School transport
- The Council will remind all officers who carry out and sit at school transport appeal panels, and those who send decision letters, of the requirement to consider all of the evidence presented and properly record and evidence how it reached the decision, in line with statutory guidance.
Case reference: 23 003 459
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council will remind officers dealing with reviews of EHCPs of the need to follow the process set out in the code of practice even if there is an outstanding appeal in relation to an earlier EHCP.
- The Council will remind officers dealing with special educational needs complaints of the need to comply with complaint timescales, particularly when it does not intend to pursue the complaint further due to an appeal. The Council should also remind those officers to check if there are separable parts of the complaint, unrelated to an appeal, which can be dealt with under the Council’s complaints procedure.
Case reference: 22 017 779
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Safeguarding
- The Council agreed to review its administrative processes for handling adult safeguarding concerns to establish why it failed to consider one of the safeguarding concerns raised in this case. It will then issue internal guidance to relevant staff to prevent reoccurrence of this issue.
- The Council agreed to share our final decision with relevant adult safeguarding staff to ensure they are aware of the Ombudsman’s findings in this case. It will ensure staff are aware of the Council’s learning points from our decision and the importance of:clear and accurate record-keeping, including recording decision reasons;keeping to timescales, monitoring delays, and keeping the subject of the safeguarding concern and/or their representative(s) informed; communicating outcomes to the subject and/or their representative(s); andproperly checking Council records when responding to complaints about adult safeguarding to ensure Council complaint responses are accurate based on its records and evidence.
Last updated: 4 April 2015