London Borough of Sutton
Complaint overview
Between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we dealt with 86 complaints. Of these, 22 were not for us or not ready for us to investigate. We assessed and closed 42 complaints. We investigated 22 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 22 complaints and upheld 13.
59% of complaints we investigated were upheld.
This compares to an average of 84% in similar authorities.
View upheld decisionsAdjusted for London Borough of Sutton's population, this is 6.2 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 13 upheld cases we found the Council had provided a satisfactory remedy before the complaint reached the Ombudsman.
8% 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 Sutton
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: 24 012 749
Category: Education
Sub Category: School transport
- The Council agreed to issue guidance to relevant officers making decisions, either on applications or appeals, about the need to not to: fetter discretion when making decisions; take irrelevant considerations into account; refer to factors which are not in its policy.
Case reference: 24 008 763
Category: Education
Sub Category: School transport
- The Council has changed the wording of its letters acknowledging receipt of second stage appeals. The letters now give more details about how an appellant can let the Council know if they wish to present their case to a panel.
- The Council has had discussions with appeals panel clerk and panel members “to ensure clarity of proceedings and considerations”.
- The Council has developed a template to record detailed notes of appeal hearings.
- The Council has developed a template agenda for appeal hearings and panel deliberations.
Case reference: 24 000 097
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Homelessness
- The Council will ask the organisation that delivers its homelessness service to remind its staff that they must issue decision letters when the Council no longer owes an applicant a housing duty.
- The Council will work with the organisation that delivers its homelessness service to identify what steps it should take to reduce the delays in making housing decisions should it in future experience staff shortages.
Case reference: 23 021 101
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Homelessness
- The Council has agreed to take steps to ensure it issues all homelessness decision letters promptly.
Case reference: 23 019 659
Category: Children's care services
Sub Category: Child protection
- The Council agreed to ensure officers are reminded of the need to promptly clarify, and set out to involved parties, when a private family arrangement is in place and to give information about its implications.
Case reference: 23 018 267
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Charging
- Review the Council’s systems and practice to ensure it completes financial assessments and consider the 12-week property disregard requests (where applicable) in a timely manner.
- By training or other means remind relevant staff they must issue service users and/or their representatives with written record of the financial assessment outcome at an early stage which clearly sets out their assessed contributions towards their care and details of how the payments will be made.
- Remind relevant staff of the importance and need to issue care cost invoices to service users and/or representatives in a timely manner and as soon as practicable after they start receiving care.
Case reference: 23 014 280
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Assessment and care plan
- The Council has agreed to consider introducing some form of systemised monitoring to ensure that when requests for an assessment are made, the Council makes a timely decision (ideally within four weeks) as to whether it will carry out an assessment, who will do it and the timeframe for doing it. The monitoring should continue to ensure the assessment is then completed in a timely manner.
Case reference: 23 001 017
Category: Environment and regulation
Sub Category: Drainage
- Provide evidence the Council has agreed to provide complaints handling refresher training to its staff
Case reference: 23 000 904
Category: Children's care services
Sub Category: Other
- The Council will review its processes for investigating complaints under the children's statutory complaints procedure to consider whether any service improvements are required to ensure it completes investigations within the statutory timescales. The Council should provide us with the evidence it has complied with the above actions.
Case reference: 22 017 725
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Charging
- The Council has agreed to take action to ensure officers give proper consideration to exercising its power to make discretionary property disregards.
Last updated: 4 April 2015