Leeds City Council
Complaint overview
Between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we dealt with 227 complaints. Of these, 63 were not for us or not ready for us to investigate. We assessed and closed 96 complaints. We investigated 68 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 68 complaints and upheld 62.
91% of complaints we investigated were upheld.
This compares to an average of 81% in similar authorities.
View upheld decisionsAdjusted for Leeds City Council's population, this is 7.5% 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 6 out of 62 upheld cases we found the Council had provided a satisfactory remedy before the complaint reached the Ombudsman.
10% 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 54 cases.
In 54 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 Leeds 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.
Councils cannot allow multiple care home contracts to run in tandem
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman is cautioning councils against allowing the care homes they work with to have subsidiary contracts with clients following a complaint about Leeds City Council.
Council to look again at summer-born children’s school start date requests
Leeds City Council failed to follow guidance on summer-born admissions when deciding when an August-born girl could start school, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has found.
Distressed Leeds girl left without proper education for months
Leeds City Council left a young girl without proper education for nine months after she started refusing to go to her primary school because of anxiety, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman 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: 24 010 616
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Homelessness
- The Council has agreed to provide relevant officers with training on chapters 6 and 18 of the Homelessness Code of Guidance. This guidance sets out how authorities should consider whether it is reasonable for an individual to continue to occupy their existing accommodation. This guidance also sets out the need to issue written decisions about an applicant's homelessness, explaining the reasons for adverse decisions.
Case reference: 24 007 590
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council will remind officers they should keep suitable records of how they come to a decision on whether the Council should arrange alternative provision for a child. The records should show the Council considered all the relevant evidence before coming to its decision.
Case reference: 24 004 918
Category: Education
Sub Category: School admissions
- The Council will consider amending its school admissions system to record the dates of any changes to the pupils’ addresses. The Council should provide us with evidence it has done so.
Case reference: 24 003 573
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Domiciliary care
- The Council has agreed to remind social work staff of the importance of reaching a balanced decision regarding care placements, taking into account all the information provided about a person’s eligible care needs.
Case reference: 24 003 054
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council will issue a staff briefing to remind relevant staff ofthe importance of following statutory timescales when completing EHC needsassessments, issuing final EHC Plans, and good communication. This will help to reduce delays in the EHC needs assessment process.
Case reference: 24 002 371
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Other
- The Council will remind its staff about the importance of considering reasonable requests for care and support plan reviews from any person acting on behalf of an adult, in accordance with statutory guidance.
Case reference: 24 001 930
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Charging
- Ensure staff carrying out financial assessments are aware the Council can use its discretion to disregard a person’s property.
Case reference: 24 000 336
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Homelessness
- The Council agreed to review its procedures for processing and recording homeless applications to ensure it meets its statutory duties and correctly records whether it owes a duty to provide interim accommodation;
- The Council agreed to issue reminders to relevant staff in its housing and homelessness teams about the need to ensure information in communications to applicants is accurate, and clearly sets out any duties accepted
- The Council agreed to issue reminders to relevant staff in its housing and homelessness teams about the need to ensure that staff agree, record and implement reasonable adjustments throughout the application process.
Case reference: 23 021 204
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council delayed in concluding an Education, Health and Care (EHC) Needs Assessment. It has agreed to demonstrate that it has reviewed what led to its delay in progressing the child's EHC Needs Assessment and provide details of an action plan to prevent the same issue occurring again.
- The Council has agreed to provide details of action it has taken, or intends to take, to improve its communication with parents and young people.
- The Council has agreed to provide details of action it has taken, or intends to take, to manage any systemic delays in investigating complaints about its Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) service.
- The Council has agreed to remind all SEND staff that if they become aware that a parent has electively home educated their child, or intends to - not for reasons of preference but because of concerns their current education is not meeting their child’s needs - that the Council must consider whether it owes that child a section 19 duty.
Case reference: 23 019 790
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Transport
- The Council should send written reminders to relevant Council staff to cover the following:ensure arrangements for risk assessments for an individual’s transport arrangements, and the sharing of these with the transport provider, are monitored and not left to drift; andIt should also outline good practice to staff to say that if the Council is unable to carry out actions as communicated to a complainant, it should proactively update them promptly with the reasons why.
Last updated: 4 April 2015