Cumbria County Council
Complaint overview
Between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we dealt with 0 complaints. Of these, 0 were not for us or not ready for us to investigate. We assessed and closed 0 complaints. We investigated 0 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
-
Complaints upheld
The Ombudsman carried out no investigations in this period
-
Satisfactory remedies provided by the Council
The Ombudsman did not uphold any complaints in this period
-
Compliance with Ombudsman recommendations
We recorded compliance outcomes in 1 cases.
In 1 cases we were satisfied with the actions taken.100% compliance rate with recommendations.
This compares to an average of n/a 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 Cumbria County 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.
No reports published
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: 22 016 433
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Safeguarding
- The Council will remind all relevant staff members: of its duties to offer relevant assessments to people that have the appearance of need for care and support in its area;of its procedures and the action it should take when it receives a safeguarding concern about an adult; andto respond to complaints about its services in a timely manner and in line with its policies.
Case reference: 22 015 038
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Other
- The Council has agreed to, through its contract monitoring procedures, ensure the Care Provider is providing support to its residents in accordance with their care and support plans relating to nutrition, personal care and activities.
Case reference: 22 013 705
Category: Education
Sub Category: Alternative provision
- 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.
- Ensure officers notify parents/guardians in writing regarding of its decisions on whether education is reasonably accessible and whether it has a duty under Section 19 of the Education Act 1996 to make alternative education provision.
Case reference: 22 010 820
Category: Children's care services
Sub Category: Other
- The Council will remind relevant officers that stage 3 panels held under the childrens statutory complaints procedure should be conducted within 30 working days of the request, and if officer availabilty is causing delay, the panel chair has discretion to decide to proceed without them.
Case reference: 22 008 801
Category: Education
Sub Category: Alternative provision
- The Council will remind relevant staff that it has a duty to consider individual circumstances in deciding whether it has a statutory duty to provide alternative provision for children out of school due to illness, exclusion or otherwise.
Case reference: 22 006 918
Category: Children's care services
Sub Category: Other
- The Council will review its arrangements for completing investigations at stage two of the children's statutory complaints procedure to ensure it has sufficient resources in place to comply with the statutory timescales.
Case reference: 22 003 251
Category: Transport and highways
Sub Category: Parking and other penalties
- Within three months of the final decision the Council should have guidance on how discretion is exercised, if none already exists.
Case reference: 22 001 452
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Charging
- The Council has agreed to provide evidence it has taken action to ensure officers deal withdecisions on deprivation of capital properly in future.
Case reference: 21 012 509
Category: Education
Sub Category: School transport
- Because of local government restructuring in the Cumbria region in April 2023, the Council will take the following actions to address the systemic issues this complaint identified: •review and amend that part of school transport policy which states it does not assess the safety of routes to pick up points. The Council should consider changes to the policy to ensure it complies with the statutory guidance and make clear that it will consider the suitability of arrangements for the entirety of the route to school including safety of routes to pick up points in future; and •share the learning from its review with the Chief Executives, Monitoring Officers and relevant Portfolio holders at Cumberland and Westmorland & Furness Councils
Case reference: 21 009 380
Category: Transport and highways
Sub Category: Other
- The Council will review its complaints procedure and resources to ensure a timely response can be provided at all stages and complainants are kept informed where this is not possible.
Last updated: 4 April 2015