Gateshead Metropolitan Borough Council
Complaint overview
Between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we dealt with 57 complaints. Of these, 27 were not for us or not ready for us to investigate. We assessed and closed 23 complaints. We investigated 7 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 7 complaints and upheld 6.
86% of complaints we investigated were upheld.
This compares to an average of 81% in similar authorities.
View upheld decisionsAdjusted for Gateshead Metropolitan Borough Council's population, this is 3% upheld decisions per 100,000 residents.
The average for authorities of this type is
4.7% upheld decisions per 100,000 residents. -
Satisfactory remedies provided by the Council
In 2 out of 6 upheld cases we found the Council had provided a satisfactory remedy before the complaint reached the Ombudsman.
33% satisfactory remedy rate.
This compares to an average of 13% in similar authorities.
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Compliance with Ombudsman recommendations
We recorded compliance outcomes in 3 cases.
In 3 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 Gateshead Metropolitan Borough 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.
Foster carers left out of pocket when child moved schools
Gateshead council will apologise to a couple after it insisted they bear the costs of taking their disabled foster child to a special school agreed by the council, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has said.
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: 22 016 064
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 to ensure it considers action to put alternative provision in place without delay.
Case reference: 22 015 862
Category: Education
Sub Category: Alternative provision
- The Council has agreed to review its systems for checking special educational provision is in place when a new or substantially different EHCP is issued or there is a change in placement.
Case reference: 22 010 798
Category: Planning
Sub Category: Planning applications
- The Council will remind officers of the need to inform members of the public reporting planning consent breaches of its decision to end an investigation and why.
- The Council will act to ensure emails from those reporting planning consent breaches or making queries are responded to without delay.
Case reference: 22 000 777
Category: Children's care services
Sub Category: Other
- The Council has agreed to consider if it can take any steps to tighten up the operation of the complaints procedure particularly at stage one, to ensure the process is completed within the required timescales.
Case reference: 21 005 508
Category: Children's care services
Sub Category: Fostering
- Using this case as an example, issue reminders to all relevant staff to ensure they must appropriately communicate with foster carers and allow their voices to be heard during a LADO investigation.
Case reference: 20 000 794
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: COVID-19
- The Council has agreed to: • identify the lessons to be learned from this complaint and the action to be taken to address them; and • provide evidence the actions have been taken.
Case reference: 19 015 893
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Allocations
- The Council agreed to ensure staff in the housing team are aware of the importance of gathering suitable evidence when applying Council policy, and not unfairly placing this burden on applicants.
Case reference: 16 019 471
Category: Education
Sub Category: School transport
- undertake a comprehensive review of its policies regarding consideration and provision of free home to school transport to looked after children where contracted placements with independent fostering providers are in place;
- clarify what its expectations are with the independent fostering agency with regard to whether the cost of home to school transport is met by the agency out of the total fee it pays to the agency rather than passed on to the foster carers to pay out of their element of the fee. Ensure this is clear in future contracts/tendering details;
Last updated: 4 April 2015