Redcar & Cleveland Council
Complaint overview
Between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we dealt with 36 complaints. Of these, 8 were not for us or not ready for us to investigate. We assessed and closed 23 complaints. We investigated 5 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 5 complaints and upheld 3.
60% of complaints we investigated were upheld.
This compares to an average of 80% in similar authorities.
View upheld decisionsAdjusted for Redcar & Cleveland Council's population, this is 2.2 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 2 out of 3 upheld cases we found the Council had provided a satisfactory remedy before the complaint reached the Ombudsman.
67% 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 1 cases.
In 1 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 Redcar & Cleveland 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.
Council fails to provide family with respite care for too long, ombudsman says
Redcar and Cleveland Council failed to provide respite care for the family of a boy with complex special educational needs which include Autism, 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: 22 012 399
Category: Children's care services
Sub Category: Other
- The Council should remind its staff of the importance of considering and responding to requests for reasonable adjustments to how it communicates
Case reference: 21 012 625
Category: Planning
Sub Category: Enforcement
- The Council will remind complaint handling staff of the need to provide evidence based reasons for their decisions.
Case reference: 21 007 960
Category: Children's care services
Sub Category: Disabled children
- Remind staff to adhere to the timeframes in the children’s statutory complaints process.
- Consider issuing notification/decision letters to parents to clarify provision agreed as part of Child in Need meetings.
Case reference: 19 018 436
Category: Children's care services
Sub Category: Friends and family carers
- The Council agreed to carry out an audit of 15% of special guardians who, between 2016 and 2019, had their Special Guardianship Allowance stopped after the initial three year period. The Council will check whether these special guardians were given a financial means test prior to their Special Guardianship Allowance being stopped. In those cases where the Council did not carry out a financial means test, it will do so now to ensure the special guardian did not miss out on any Special Guardianship Allowance they were entitled to.
Case reference: 19 006 817
Category: Education
Sub Category: School transport
- The Council has agreed to provide the Ombudsman with an update of the review of its home to school transport policy.
Last updated: 4 April 2015