North East Lincolnshire Council
Complaint overview
Between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we dealt with 28 complaints. Of these, 10 were not for us or not ready for us to investigate. We assessed and closed 11 complaints. We investigated 7 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 7 complaints and upheld 6.
86% of complaints we investigated were upheld.
This compares to an average of 80% in similar authorities.
View upheld decisionsAdjusted for North East Lincolnshire Council's population, this is 3.8 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 0 out of 6 upheld cases we found the Council had provided a satisfactory remedy before the complaint reached the Ombudsman.
0% 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 4 cases.
In 4 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 North East Lincolnshire 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 should carry out regular reviews of care home residents’ assets
Councils must carry out regular reviews of residents’ assets when assessing care home charges under deferred payments schemes, the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) has said.
Mother and baby separated due to council’s disproportionate and arbitrary actions
North East Lincolnshire Council has been heavily criticised by the Ombudsman after social workers arbitrarily removed a young baby from her mother’s care and handed the child over to her father.
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: 24 013 002
Category: Planning
Sub Category: Planning applications
- The Council has agreed to provide training to all members of the planning committee reminding them of the basic principles of good decision-making, including the need to record clear reasons for all decisions particularly where the decision is contrary to the officer’s recommendation.
Case reference: 24 010 073
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Assessment and care plan
- The Council agreed to work with the NHS Integrated Care Board and Care Plus Group Ltd (who delivered the services on the Council's behalf), to produce a dated action plan of any changes it will make to relevant policies, processes, and staff training, to address the faults identified with care assessment and planning, and complaint handling.
Case reference: 24 007 895
Category: Children's care services
Sub Category: Child protection
- The Council agreed to remind Local Authority Designated Officers and relevant officers of the need to ensure recommended action from previous Allegation Management Meeting's are shown to have been actively considered and decided.
- The Council agreed to remind minute takers of Allegation Management Meeting's of the need to accurately record who is in attendance.
Case reference: 24 008 520
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council will remind staff within its Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Department that final responsibility for securing Education, Health and Care Plan provision and ensuring plans are reviewed on time lies with the Council.
Case reference: 24 002 470
Category: Children's care services
Sub Category: Child protection
- The Council agreed to identify why no referral was made to the Local Authority Designated Officer in 2021 and ensure relevant officers are reminded of the need to consider making one in line with Council policies.
- The Council agreed to remind officers of the importance of clearly recording decisions about whether a claim is a concern or allegation under its policies.
- The Council agreed to remind Local Authority Designated Officers and relevant officers of the need to ensure recommended action from previous Allegation Management Meetings are shown to have been actively considered and decided.
- The Council agreed to act to ensure all those subject to Local Authority Designated Officer decisions are sent the decision promptly.
- The Council agreed to remind minute takers of Allegation Management Meetings of the need to accurately record who is in attendance.
Case reference: 23 007 291
Category: Children's care services
Sub Category: Child protection
- The Council has agreed to send us an action plan which sets out how, in future, it will avoid making similar mistakes in record-keeping, risk management and complaints-handling.
Case reference: 23 005 356
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Assessment and care plan
- The Council agreed to update the information on its website, and that of the organisation which provides its adult social work services, about how to complaint about adult social work in the Council's area. It will ensure that the information is accurate and directs potential complainants to details of the relevant complaints procedure.
Case reference: 22 004 590
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Assessment and care plan
- Within three months of the final decision the Council should create a specific, measurable, realistic and timeboundaction plan to address the factors which led to delays in assessing the service user's need for s117 aftercare, withthe aim of reducing the chance of recurrences.
Case reference: 21 019 060
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Assessment and care plan
- The Council will amend its financial assessment outcome template letters to ensure these provide contact details for who to complain to.
- The Council will remind staff working in Adult Social Care of their duty to provide clear and transparent information on charging in a format suitable for the service user to understand.
- The Council will act to ensure Adult Social Care staff are aware of the Ombudsman’s expectation that they act without undue delay; a lack of action over a number of months is likely to amount to fault.
Last updated: 4 April 2015