Agenda item

1:50

Each year, the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) issues an Annual Review Report about each council in relation to the complaints made to the Ombudsman about that Council in the previous financial year. My report (AG7) to this Committee therefore informs members about the LGO’s Annual Review Report for Oxfordshire County Council for the year 2014/15. 

In previous years, the Ombudsman issued more detailed Annual Reports with a commentary on each authority's performance. Following changes to the LGO’s investigations procedures, this is no longer the case.

However, these figures, in comparison with other information published separately by the Ombudsman for all authorities, demonstrate that the Council’s system of control as expressed through the Council’s engagement with the Ombudsman is working well. 

RECOMMENDATION

The Committee is RECOMMENDED to note and comment upon this report and on the Local Government Ombudsman’s Annual Review of Oxfordshire County Council for 2014/15.

The Committee considered the report on the Local Government Ombudsman’s Annual Review (AG7).

Glenn Watson, Principal Governance Officer, in introducing the report, explained that each year the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) issued an Annual Review Report about each Council in relation to the complaints made to the Ombudsman about that Council in the previous financial year. The report to the Committee informed members about the LGO’s Annual Review Report for Oxfordshire County Council for the year 2014/15. 

Mr Watson explained that in previous years the Ombudsman issued more detailed Annual Reports with a commentary on each authority's performance. However, following changes to the LGO’s investigations procedures, this was no longer the case.

Mr Watson also added that the information in the report should come with a warning in that that information did not reflect the information held by the Local Authority with regards to the number of complaints upheld and that the LGO were currently not likely to correct their figures.

With reference to Paragraphs 8 and 9, Mr Watson pointed out that the subject areas for which Oxfordshire County Council had attracted the most referrals to the LGO reflected national trends.

Mr Watson then drew attention to Paragraph 13 of the report which gave a summary of the complaints upheld by the LGO. He explained that, contrary to the LGO’s report which stated that of the 17 complaints investigated by the LGO 7 complaints were not upheld and 9 were upheld, in fact 9 complaints were not upheld and 7 were upheld. He also informed the Committee that, generally speaking, the action or remedy required of the Local Authority in those cases that were upheld was not substantial.

To put this into a broader context, Mr Watson explained that during 2014/15 the Council had received 131 complaints relating to Adult Social Care, 104 relating to Children and Education Services and 282 Corporate Complaints. The relatively small number of complaints that reach the LGO demonstrated the robustness of the Council’s own complaints procedure. However, he added that lessons will continue to be learned and that complacency would not become an issue.

Peter Clark, County Solicitor and Monitoring Officer, added that he agreed that the Council had a robust system in place in order to handle complaints and pointed out that there were no common themes of mistakes being repeated in the report.

Dr Geoff Jones pointed out that more than half of the complaints received by the LGO regarding Oxfordshire County Council were referred back to the Council and should not be regarded as signed off as the Council would still have had to investigate those complaints.

A number of Members expressed their concern that, although they had confidence in the Council’s complaints procedure, the fact that the figures in the LGO’s report were inaccurate meant that the Council should use caution when assessing its own performance against them.

The Committee noted that it would be the last meeting for Peter Clark as Monitoring Officer.  The Chairman and members paid tribute to Mr Clark and wished him well in his new role as Head of Paid Serive.

RESOLVED:  to note the report and to request that Peter Clark, County Solicitor and Monitoring Officer, write to the LGO to express the Committee’s dissatisfaction with the accuracy of the information provided by the LGO in its Annual Review.