St Helens Metropolitan Borough Council
Complaint overview
Between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we dealt with 58 complaints. Of these, 18 were not for us or not ready for us to investigate. We assessed and closed 26 complaints. We investigated 14 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 14 complaints and upheld 12.
86% of complaints we investigated were upheld.
This compares to an average of 81% in similar authorities.
View upheld decisionsAdjusted for St Helens Metropolitan Borough Council's population, this is 6.5 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 1 out of 12 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 13% in similar authorities.
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Compliance with Ombudsman recommendations
We recorded compliance outcomes in 11 cases.
In 11 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 St Helens Metropolitan Borough 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.
St Helens Council urged to reconsider response to Ombudsman’s report
The Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) has asked St Helens Council to reconsider its response to a report issued following a complaint about a disabled man’s care.
Green Belt planning report issued by Local Government Ombudsman
The Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) is reminding authorities of the importance of correctly and consistently applying relevant policies when considering planning applications in the Green Belt
The Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) has upheld a man’s complaint about his council refusing to fund his care because he’d been awarded a personal injury claim in court.
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: 24 010 091
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council has agreed to investigate the reason for the delay in issuing the Education Health and Care (EHC) Plan for the child in this case and identify actions to implement to ensure it meets statutory timescales with regards to EHC Plans following reviews.
Case reference: 24 000 311
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Direct payments
- Write to staff to remind them of the importance of keeping accurate records.
Case reference: 23 020 586
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- Provide if already in existence or produce a plan detailing what action it is taking to address the shortage of EP’s and the delays in issuing EHC Plans and take it to the relevant scrutiny committee or panel for this issue.
Case reference: 23 017 854
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council will explain to staff in its education service that they can issue a final Education, Health and Care Plan naming a type of school instead of a particular school.
- The Council will review why the Council failed to consult with any potential schools for the complainant's child between May and December 2023 and what action it needs to take to prevent a similar fault in future. If the Council identifies actions to take, it should send the Ombudsman an action plan setting out how it will take those steps and when by.
Case reference: 23 011 396
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council will remind all staff of the deadline for issuing EHC plans where a child is to move between key phases and of the importance of keeping families told of any delays.
Case reference: 23 006 977
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Assessment and care plan
- The Council has agreed to review all other cases involving deputyship fees for service users for the past 12 months in light of our findings and reassess the charges in those cases where necessary.
Case reference: 22 003 504
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Charging
- The Council was at fault when a local adult social care provider acting on its behalf wrongly billed a deceased resident's family for outstanding care fees. The Council has agreed to demonstrate that the local adult social care provider has carried out an investigation into why the family were incorrectly billed despite receiving evidence from the family to disprove its calculations.
- The Council was at fault for failing to identify during its complaints process that it was the organisation responsible for the total cost of the placement and instead passed the responsibility for some of the outstanding fees onto the resident's family. The Council has agreed to show that improvements have been made to a local adult social care provider’s systems for billing residents to prevent this fault occurring in future.
- The Council has agreed to show that it has taken steps to improve a local adult social care provider’s approach to transparency and communication with the Council at all times, but particularly when being investigated.
- The Council has agreed to remind its complaints team and adult social care team that disputes over top-up fees are not only matters for the complainant and the care provider, if the Council has commissioned the care.
Case reference: 22 002 085
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Residential care
- The Council will provide evidence to the Ombudsman of the actions taken by the care home to ensure staff are aware of the procedure to follow with residents belongings and when a fall takes place.
Case reference: 22 001 418
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Assessment and care plan
- The Council will consider the increase in monitoring of care needs assessments and re-assessments as well as care and support plans being sent to service users.
- The Council will consider introducing more prominent recording of any reasonable adjustments required by service users in the assessment or re-assessment documents as well as care and support plans.The Council will provide evidence that this has happened.
Case reference: 21 018 898
Category: Planning
Sub Category: Planning applications
- The Council will review its complaints procedure to ensure that all complainants receive a response in line with its published timescales or an explanation where this is not possible and that referrals from the Ombudsman are acted on promptly.
- The Council will review its training and guidance to relevant staff to ensure correct information is provided about potential enforcement action with particular reference to prior approval applications.
- The Council will review its enforcement procedure to ensure that reports are prioritised appropriately and members of the public are kept updated as necessary.
Last updated: 4 April 2015