Watchdog warns council over complaint delays

Council chief executive Paul Robinson was told the authority had made "poor quality" and "incomplete" responses to complaints.

Worcestershire County Council has been warned about how long it takes to deal with complaints for the fifth year in a row.

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman told the local authority it had concerns over how it responded to investigations.

The ombudsman upheld 23 complaints against the authority in the year to March 2024.

In a letter to council chief executive Paul Robinson, the watchdog said: "In addition to delays in implementing our recommendations, there were instances of poor-quality, incomplete, and delayed responses to our investigation inquiries."

In one case, the council failed to provide suitable social care support for two children for 18 months.

It has since agreed to pay £1,000 to the family and review its commissioning service.

The authority was told to apologise to a family and pay £1,400, after it complained about the council’s failure to provide a child with education and free school meals.

The ombudsman, Amerdeep Somal, wrote to the authority saying she appreciated that the council agreed to its recommendations, but was disappointed five of them were not completed within agreed timescales.

A spokesperson for Worcestershire County Council said: “We continue to meet with the ombudsman on a quarterly basis to improve our complaint-handling process and have already seen improvements in timescales and quality of responses, which is great news.

“We value the feedback from our residents, either by formal complaints and compliments, or by comments and suggestions, as they often enable us to improve the services we deliver," the authority added.

This news was gathered by the Local Democracy Reporting Service which covers councils and other public service organisations.