Essex County Council
Complaint overview
Between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we dealt with 385 complaints. Of these, 71 were not for us or not ready for us to investigate. We assessed and closed 121 complaints. We investigated 193 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 193 complaints and upheld 183.
95% of complaints we investigated were upheld.
This compares to an average of 89% in similar authorities.
View upheld decisionsAdjusted for Essex County Council's population, this is 11.9 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 7 out of 183 upheld cases we found the Council had provided a satisfactory remedy before the complaint reached the Ombudsman.
4% 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 138 cases.
In 138 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 Essex 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.
Essex couple unable to spend as much time as they wanted in final days because of council decision
An Essex woman was not able to spend as much time as she wanted with her husband in his final weeks because the county council moved him to a care placement further away from the family home, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has found.
Essex County Council to reconsider assessment of Disability Related Expenses
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has found Essex County Council at fault in how it considered two separate women’s Disability Related Expenses (DREs).
Boy misses two terms of education because of lack of support from council
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman is reminding councils of their duty to monitor and ensure education provided to children educated out of school is suitable, following an investigation into a complaint against Essex County Council.
Teenager removed from foster parents without notice by Essex County Council
Social workers moved a vulnerable Essex teen from her aunt and uncle’s care without any warning, the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) said.
Clear guidance essential for parents to make the right choice about schools says Ombudsman
The clarity of information provided by Essex County Council to parents about a new school transport policy has been criticised by the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) in a report.
LGO report highlights wider impact of financial abuse of vulnerable people
In a recent case involving an elderly man, Essex County Council social workers delayed acting on a family’s concerns when they claimed their relative was being exploited by a younger female friend.
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: 25 003 128
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council will write to this office, setting out how it will ensure in future that, when a parent or school notifies the Council of a pupil’s non-attendance, the relevant department is informed and can coordinate follow-up action to ensure children missing from education are identified and their needs are met.
- The Council will consider a formal communication process between its SEND and education welfare teams.
- The Council will review its policies and procedures to ensure it retains sufficient oversight of children missing from education.
Case reference: 24 023 221
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Charging
- • Remind relevant staff of the importance of providing as much information as possible about charging for adult social care and the costs of the package of care at the time they arrange the care. And to ensure they make a full record of the advice and information given.
Case reference: 24 022 753
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Charging
- Provide evidence of the steps taken by the Council to ensure it keeps families informed about changes in care home charges
- Provide evidence of the steps taken by the Council to ensure it checks with care home managers about their expected rates
- Remind staff to keep proper and appropriate records regarding the negotiation and agreement of care charges
Case reference: 24 022 393
Category: Transport and highways
Sub Category: Parking and other penalties
- The Council will remind staff of the importance of logging reasoning in the ‘attributes section’ of its system. When making a decision regarding a dropped kerb application, the Council's advisors need to fill out an 'attributes section' of its system, which allows the advisor to provide a more detailed reasoning of its decision. The system then issues this to the applicant. Therefore if the advisor does not complete this section, the applicant is not provided a detailed response into the Council's decision which can lead to confusion on how the Council has reached its decision.
Case reference: 24 021 733
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- In writing, remind staff of the importance of keeping Section 19 decisions under review where further information is required.
Case reference: 24 021 378
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council will review its commissioning arrangements for Speech and Language Therapists to ensure it has sufficient therapists to deliver Speech and Language therapy provision outlined in Education Health and Care Plans. If this is already part of the Council’s Special Education Needs and Disability improvement plan it should provide us with an update on its progress.
Case reference: 24 020 580
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council will review its Personal budget process to make it compliant with its policy.The Council will ensure that when refusing a Personal budget request for a child with an EHC Plan it sends its response in writing giving the reasons and advising of the right to ask for a review.
- The Council will remind all the SEND front-line staff of the Council’s duties in relation to Personal budgets for children with EHC Plan. For this purpose the Council might use our Focus report “Parent Power: personal budgets in EHC plans”.
Case reference: 24 019 303
Category: Education
Sub Category: School transport
- Review its home to school transport policy to ensure it reflects the statutory guidance in relation to sufficiency of travel allowances.
Case reference: 24 018 461
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council will issue a staff briefing to all front line staff who may come into contact with schools or parents to make them aware of the Council’s Section 19 responsibilities and understand they must make the relevant Council teams aware if a child of compulsory school age is not attending school full-time.
- The Council will review templates used by its SEND information, advice and support services to ensure they are accurate and introduce a regular process of checking the accuracy of information provided by this service.
Case reference: 24 018 068
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Domiciliary care
- The Council agreed that it would seek assurance from the Care Provider at the centre of this complaint, that it had a complaint procedure in place consistent with its contract expectations. That it would look to ensure the Care Provider signposted those dissatisfied with its service to that procedure.
- The Council agreed to remind its social work staff to signpost users of services dissatisfied with a commissioned care provider to complaint procedures if they cannot resolve an issue to their satisfaction. They should not suggest the user looks to use a different care provider as an alternative to pursuing a complaint.
- The Council agreed to remind social work staff undertaking adult safeguarding enquiries that their investigations must properly explore and reflect the concerns giving rise to those enquiries. They should also reach evidence based conclusions. This was after this investigation highlighted a series of flaws with the Council's investigation of a care provider, where it failed to make robust enquiries, nor properly examine information it held showing irregularities in medication administration and record keeping.
Last updated: 4 April 2015