Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman calls for more powers to address “accountability gaps”

In its Triennial Review, published today (21 November), the Ombudsman revealed that the number of cases coming to its service has been “increasing steadily” for the last three years, dominated by “complex issues” in the areas of Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), adult social care and homelessness.

The Ombudsman observed: “These cases usually centre around the person involved having been seriously affected by the failure of services.”

The LGSCO called on the Government for its jurisdiction to be updated to ensure it is able to provide redress for all local government services, “including those arrangements emerging through the devolution agenda, which aims to allow more decisions to be taken by local communities”.

On adult social care, the report noted that services continue to be in “enormous demand”.

In 2023-24, 16% of the cases the watchdog received were in adult social care, and it upheld 80% of the complaints investigated.

The Triennial Review noted: “Whilst we find that local authorities understand their responsibilities to signpost to us, we consistently receive far fewer complaints from people who fund their own care than we would expect given their proportion in the care market.

“This represents a gap in redress and potentially thousands of people missing out on their right of access to our service, and many providers missing out on the opportunity to learn from their mistakes and improve services for all.”

The report recommended introducing a legal requirement for all social care providers to signpost people to the Ombudsman, as a way of reducing this gap.

On education and special educational needs, the LGSCO said its casework is “dominated” by complaints about SEN provision and the actions of schools.

These complaints made up 26% of the complaints received by the Ombudsman in 2023-24 and were 42% of all the cases it upheld.

Key issues identified by the Ombudsman were failures by councils to carry out EHC Plan assessments and reviews in good time, and failures to provide the support stated in an EHC Plan once a child had one.

Making recommendations in this area, the LGSCO called on the Government for the power to investigate the way EHC Plans are implemented in schools.

It also called for the ability to investigate cases where children and young people with additional needs are admitted or excluded from schools, and issues with the support they are offered in the school setting.

The Ombudsman meanwhile highlighted housing and homelessness as a “rapidly growing area” of its casework – observing that the issues are “particularly acute” in London, with a large proportion of its investigations into housing being in the capital.

The report warned: “The redress system is complicated, with LGSCO’s jurisdiction having significant cross-over with that of the Housing Ombudsman Service. There are also gaps in jurisdiction between our two bodies, for example with people who are not council tenants currently unable to complain to any organisation about the actions of a local authority when they are acting as a social landlord.

“We see numerous cases where people are wrongly being denied access to housing registers or being given a lower priority than they should have. This comes from delays in reviewing and assessing their housing needs, and disagreement on their requirements and the connections people have to a local area.”

Finally, the Ombudsman requested for the Government to give it a statutory duty to monitor compliance with its new Complaint Handling Code, due to be implemented by councils from April 2026.

It said: “The existing Code sets the standards of complaint handling for all the bodies in LGSCO’s jurisdiction. A duty to monitor compliance would help LGSCO to improve complaint handling and consistency throughout local authorities, ensuring that all – not just most – adhere to the Code’s basic, well-researched standards.”

Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, Amerdeep Somal, said: “As the last port of call for complaints about local government and social care services, we play a vital role in the oversight of these services and in improving services for everyone in England.

“But the landscape we operate in is changing at an ever-increasing pace, and we need our powers to reflect this so we can provide a better service to those who come to us for redress when things go wrong.

“The recommendations we have made should close some of the accountability gaps we know exist for people, and ensure we operate as a modern Ombudsman service in the years to come.”

Lottie Winson