London Borough of Bexley
Complaint overview
Between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we dealt with 80 complaints. Of these, 24 were not for us or not ready for us to investigate. We assessed and closed 39 complaints. We investigated 17 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 17 complaints and upheld 11.
65% of complaints we investigated were upheld.
This compares to an average of 84% in similar authorities.
View upheld decisionsAdjusted for London Borough of Bexley's population, this is 4.4 upheld decisions per 100,000 residents.
The average for authorities of this type is
9.1 upheld decisions per 100,000 residents. -
Satisfactory remedies provided by the Council
In 1 out of 11 upheld cases we found the Council had provided a satisfactory remedy before the complaint reached the Ombudsman.
9% satisfactory remedy rate.
This compares to an average of 12% in similar authorities.
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Compliance with Ombudsman recommendations
We recorded compliance outcomes in 12 cases.
In 12 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 London Borough of Bexley
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.
London council to revise its social care charging policy following Ombudsman’s investigation
London Borough of Bexley has agreed to revise its social care charging policy after a man complained to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman about the way the authority increased its costs.
Bexley council failed to learn from previous school transport complaints
London Borough of Bexley has been heavily criticised by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman after it failed to make agreed improvements to the way it decides school transport applications for children with disabilities.
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: 23 017 237
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Private housing
- The Council has agreed to review its procedures for communicating with landlords when considering applications for housing assistance from tenants served with notice to leave their accommodation.
- The Council has agreed to remind officers of its process and timescales for completing its complaints procedure.
Case reference: 23 014 095
Category: Children's care services
Sub Category: Looked after children
- The Council will remind relevant staff that a lack of consent from a young person does not automatically prevent it from considering a relevant complaint through the children’s statutory complaint procedure; and where a young person has refused consent to share their information the test is whether the child is Gillick competent to make that decision, and whether it is in their best interest.
Case reference: 23 011 120
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Homelessness
- The Council has agreed to reflect on the issues raised in this decision statement and identify any areas of service improvement, particularly in respect of assessment of persons leaving custody and assessment of priority need. The Council should prepare a short report setting out what it intends to do to ensure similar problems do not reoccur. This report should be sent to the Ombudsman.
Case reference: 23 006 830
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Homelessness
- The Council will provide refresher training to all housing and homelessness staff, including managers, on the Council’s interim accommodation duty and relief duty.
- The Council will make sure all staff in the housing and homelessness department know they must keep proper, contemporaneous records of all of their communications and actions.
- The Council will share a copy of this decision and the Ombudsman’s focus report (‘More Home Truths: learning lessons from complaints about the Homelessness Reduction Act’ published March 2023) with all housing and homelessness staff, including managers, and discuss them at a team meeting.
Case reference: 23 004 636
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council agreed to review its processes for referring young people approaching adulthood, who have special educational needs or are receiving children's social care support, to its adult social care team for an assessment of their needs as an adult. It should ensure referrals are made promptly and it has systems in place to identify missed referrals.
Case reference: 23 009 268
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Homelessness
- The Council has agreed to remind staff dealing with homelessness cases of the importance of considering if the Council owes a duty to help prevent loss or damage to a person's belongings.
Case reference: 23 007 822
Category: Benefits and tax
Sub Category: Council tax
- The Council has agreed to inform us of the improvements it has made to its processes to ensure such delays do not recur.
Case reference: 23 007 757
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council will remind staff that most annual reviews of Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plans should be held within 12 months of the previous annual review, not the previous EHC Plan.
Case reference: 23 007 558
Category: Planning
Sub Category: Planning applications
- The Council has agreed to provide training or guidance to staff handling complaints about compliance with the Council’s complaints procedure.
Case reference: 22 015 782
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council will introduce a policy on Personal Budgets in the Education Health and Care plans which would include information specified in the SEND Code of Practice 2014 paragraph 9.96.
- The Council will consider introducing a template letter for negative Personal Budget decisions which informs people of their right to ask for a review of the decision.
- The Council will prepare a plan of improvements in monitoring timeliness of the Education Health and Care needs reassessments.
Last updated: 4 April 2015