Gloucestershire County Council
Complaint overview
Between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we dealt with 97 complaints. Of these, 34 were not for us or not ready for us to investigate. We assessed and closed 29 complaints. We investigated 34 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 34 complaints and upheld 29.
85% of complaints we investigated were upheld.
This compares to an average of 89% in similar authorities.
View upheld decisionsAdjusted for Gloucestershire County Council's population, this is 4.4 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 5 out of 29 upheld cases we found the Council had provided a satisfactory remedy before the complaint reached the Ombudsman.
17% 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 26 cases.
In 25 cases we were satisfied with the actions taken.96% 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 Gloucestershire 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.
Council fails to take on board expert advice when assessing woman’s care needs
A Gloucestershire woman was left malnourished and without the support she needed for her medical conditions because the county council ignored professional advice, a Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman investigation 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: 24 020 378
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council has agreed to review how it keeps oversight of children out of school with an EHC Plan, to ensure it has sufficient procedures in place to check SEN provision is in place and being received.
Case reference: 24 019 290
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Charging
- Review its procedures to ensure that when service users transition to self funding the Council follows the Care Act 2014 guidance. This should consider whether the Council has a duty to arrange and manage the care and whether a deferred payment agreement is appropriate.
- Review its relevant standard letters to ensure they are clear and comply with the Care Act 2014 guidance.
Case reference: 24 019 097
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Charging
- The Council has agreed to review its procedures to ensure it is able to issue invoices within a reasonable timeframe, and that it provides clear updates when delays are unavoidable.
Case reference: 24 017 117
Category: Education
Sub Category: Alternative provision
- The Council will remind relevant officers of the need to consider and clearly record decisions about requests for alternative provision under Section 19 of the Education Act, irrespective of whether a referral has been received from the child's school. This is because the Section 19 duty lies with the Council, not the allocated school. The record made by the officers should outline the Council's rationale for any such decisions and particularly with reference to the availability and accessibility of the child's allocated school. The Council may issue this reminder via a staff briefing or team meeting and should provide us with evidence of this.
Case reference: 24 016 739
Category: Education
Sub Category: Alternative provision
- The Council has agreed to review how it makes its decisions regarding alternative provision to ensure it offers full-time education where appropriate or provides clear and documented reasons when it decides a part-time table is a suitable education for a child. This record should include an assessment of how much the child can manage when they are too unwell to access a full-time education. The decision should be clearly communicated to the child’s parent/carer.
Case reference: 24 015 276
Category: Education
Sub Category: Alternative provision
- The Council has agreed to create an action plan to address how it will improve internal processes and communication when considering its Section 19 responsibility and making the necessary arrangements to put alternative provision in place in a timely manner.
Case reference: 24 011 795
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Assessment and care plan
- Remind staff of the need to complete care needs assessments within an appropriate and reasonable timescale, in line with the care and support statutory guidance
- Remind staff to keep cases under regular review to avoid drift and ensure the correct type of accommodation is considered
- Remind staff to explain to service users where necessary the difference between residential care and supported living accommodation
- Review the role of the Council’s brokerage team in its sourcing of supported living vacancies and its interaction with adult social care teams, with a view to improving communication and taking a pro-active approach regarding available pen pictures.
Case reference: 24 004 646
Category: Children's care services
Sub Category: Looked after children
- The Council will remind officers responding to complaints at stage three of the children's statutory complaints procedure that the Council can deviate from the recommendations made by the stage three panel with its reasons, but cannot overturn the stage three panel’s outcomes on the complaint.
- The Council will consider the Ombudsman's decision finding fault in how it provided care, accommodation and education to a child in its care at a relevant scrutiny committee and consider if there are any further actions the Council intends to take in relation to the child’s case or its children’s home sufficiency.
- The Council will provide the Ombudsman with a 6 and 12 month update on the progress it has made with the development of four properties as children’s homes.
Case reference: 24 002 984
Category: Children's care services
Sub Category: Child protection
- The Council agreed that it would brief all relevant social work staff on the importance of properly considering cases that might engage its duty to support someone as a kinship foster carer. In particular, that social workers must record their thinking on whether someone caring for a relative's child following intervention by the Council should be regarded as such, and that they should record advice given to family members on this subject. This followed an investigation where we found a child subject to a child protection plan entered the care of his aunt for a time, in circumstances where she may have been regarded as a kinship foster carer had such consideration taken place.
Case reference: 24 002 936
Category: Children's care services
Sub Category: Looked after children
- The Council has agreed to ensure that relevant staff are sufficiently aware of all the Council’s children’s social care functions which are covered by the statutory complaints procedure (and of who is able to make a complaint under that procedure).
Last updated: 4 April 2015