58 complaints to Ombudsman about borough council

A TOTAL of 58 complaints were made to the Local Government Ombudsman about Warrington Borough Council last year.
Twelve were upheld and eight were thrown out – with the remainder either closed after initial enquiries, referred back for local resolution or judged to be incomplete or invalid.
Overall, the Ombudsman upheld 46 per cent of all complaints investigated in detail across England while the figure for Warrington was 60 per cent.
But in a report to the borough council’s audit and corporate governance committee, council solicitor Timothy Date says direct statistical comparisons should be treated with some caution.
He said: “The Ombudsman is mindful that there are considerable population variations between authorities.
“The Ombudsman considers that the larger the population an authority serves, he more likely the Ombudsman is to receive complaints about it.
“Furthermore the Ombudsman acknowledges that the bare numbers of complaints against an authority do not prove that it is a ‘bad’ or ‘good’ council.”
During he year, the Ombudsman published two reports about Warrington, one of which was a joint report with the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.
Both were about children with special needs and specifically about the lack of speech and language therapy provision.
“There was considerable fault found over three years which affected a further 15 teenagers, all of whom were not provided with speech and language therapy contrary to a statutory duty.
“The council and its health sector partners took action to remedy the situation to ensure there could be no repeat of the situation in the future. Robust monitoring arrangements are in place between the authority and Bridgewater Community Healthcare NHS Trust to ensure that all young people who need this service are receiving it.
“An apology and suitable compensation was offered to those families affected by the situation.”
The council’s Protecting the Most Vulnerable committee has endorsed the improved arrangements now in place for the delivery and monitoring of speech and language therapy provision and the Ombudsman’s office has confirmed that it welcomes the council’s constructive response to the investigation and agreement to a suitable remedy.