Article summary
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) has issued a reminder for local authorities to ensure that they have a good complaint handling system in place, following two instances of significant issues found with councils' procedures. Both LB Islington and the former Cumbria County Council were found to have issues. In Islington, the LGSCO found that 44 people had open complaints with the council and had already waited significantly longer than they should have. In Cumbria, the LGSCO found that the council had serious delays when conducting stage two of the statutory children’s complaints procedure and that between October 2021 and October 2022, 12 other complainants had been waiting at least 90 days. Islington has since recruited more staff to deal with the backlog and has undertaken an independent review of its complaint handling processes. Cumbria County Council was disbanded at the end of March 2023, however prior to this it had agreed to recruit more...
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