Kingston upon Hull City Council
Complaint overview
Between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we dealt with 54 complaints. Of these, 16 were not for us or not ready for us to investigate. We assessed and closed 27 complaints. We investigated 11 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 11 complaints and upheld 8.
73% of complaints we investigated were upheld.
This compares to an average of 80% in similar authorities.
View upheld decisionsAdjusted for Kingston upon Hull City Council's population, this is 2.9 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 1 out of 8 upheld cases we found the Council had provided a satisfactory remedy before the complaint reached the Ombudsman.
13% 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 7 cases.
In 7 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 Kingston upon Hull 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.
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: 24 023 192
Category: Education
Sub Category: School transport
- The Council should review its school transport policy to include what formal process parents should follow when they do not agree with the Council’s travel arrangements for their child, including timescales; and
- Once in place, the Council should write to relevant staff about this process and ensures all decision letters about transport arrangements to parents signpost them to this process (for example, by creating a letter template).
Case reference: 24 022 114
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Disabled facilities grants
- The Council agreed that it would introduce a policy or protocol that would explain how it will consider cases where it is asked to provide 'high cost' adaptations to homes, that will meet the needs of disabled household members. These are cases where the cost of adaptations will likely exceed the £30,000 limit for Disabled Facilities Grants (DFG) application.
- The Council agreed that it would present a report to its community scrutiny committee setting out our concerns about how it handled a request for 'high cost' adaptations from the complainant. The investigation found significant delay, flawed decision making and flaws in Council policy for considering discretionary awards in addition to disabled facilities grants. The report would consider how the Council was meeting timescales recommended by Government for deciding DFG requests and how these might be improved.
- The Council agreed that it would complete a review of its housing renewal policy, taking account of criticisms made in our decision statement where we highlighted passages that were unclear.
Case reference: 24 020 630
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council will amend its webpages regarding applying for a primary or secondary school place to explain:• how parents should apply for a school place whilst still awaiting the outcome of an Education, Health and Care needs assessment; and,• how this process may change if the Council later decides to issue their child with an Education, Health and Care Plan.
Case reference: 24 015 537
Category: Children's care services
Sub Category: Disabled children
- The Council has agreed to remind complaint handling staff of the importance of using the Council’s screening tool for ensuring that complaints which should be investigated under the children’s statutory procedure are not missed in future.
- The Council has agreed to demonstrate that it has considered what caused the delays in its corporate complaints handling in this case and has taken steps to prevent these delays in future.
Case reference: 24 012 465
Category: Education
Sub Category: Alternative provision
- The Council will remind relevant officers to keep oversight and decide whether it has a duty to provide alternative provision when it becomes aware a child is not attending school.
- The Council will remind Special Educational Needs and Disability officers of the duty to carry out phase transfer annual reviews and issue amended Education, Health and Care Plans in line with statutory timescales naming a post-16 educational placement by 31 March in the year of transfer.
Case reference: 24 012 182
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Charging
- Provide the Ombudsman with evidence of the full safeguarding investigation the Care Provider agreed to complete following the safeguarding enquiry into the repeated medication error in Mrs X’s case. Also provide evidence to show the Council shared the safeguarding investigation outcome with the Care Quality Commission.
Case reference: 24 003 617
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council should write to the complainant to outline what work they have done, or intend to do, to improve the timeliness of providing desensitisation plans to children with similar learning needs.
Case reference: 23 011 537
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Disabled facilities grants
- The Council has agreed to carry out an in-depth review of processes and procedures with KWL to identifywhy the works had to be repeated or repaired so many times before they were ofan acceptable standard and identify learning to improve communication,timeliness, and quality.
- The Council has agreed to produce an action plan setting out how the Council, and KWL on itsbehalf, will improve communication and improve the timeliness and quality ofDisabled adaptation works.
- The Council has agreed to refer the outcome of the review and the resulting action plan to the relevantscrutiny committee or Cabinet Member to ensure democratic oversight.
Case reference: 24 009 676
Category: Children's care services
Sub Category: Child protection
- The Council has agreed to develop a specific action plan for its approach to members of families it is working with who are victims of domestic abuse. The Council will share a copy of the plan with the Ombudsman.
- The Council has agreed to share the Ombudsman decision, and its action plan on its work with victims of domestic abuse, with the relevant committee of elected members to reflect on the lessons learned.
Case reference: 24 006 478
Category: Children's care services
Sub Category: Friends and family carers
- The Council will review how it screens complaints about Special Guardianship and foster care payments and ensure the screening process is in line with the statutory guidance as to whether a complaint should be considered through the corporate complaint procedure or the children's statutory complaint procedure.
Last updated: 4 April 2015