Local Government Ombudsman identifies “several concerns” and “significant delays” in Doncaster Council’s responses to complaints

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) has identified several concerns with Doncaster Council’s handling of complaints.

In the organisation’s annual letter to Doncaster Council, the LGSCO identified several cases where responses to complaints were “concerning”.

In 2022/3, the LGSCO dealt with 47 cases of people whose complaints had not been upheld or resolved by the council.

Of these, 10 were upheld in the complainants’ favour.

Before complaints reached the LGSCO, it was found that zero percent had been given a satisfactory remedy by the council.

The LGSCO identified four particular instances where the council’s response to complaints were poor.

Paul Najsarek, Interim LGSCO, said: “In one case, inadequate documentary evidence was sent to us, and in another, the comments about the complainant were unprofessional.

“In a third case, your Council failed to provide the information we asked for, requiring us to send a second enquiry, and in a further case the delays were so significant we took the unusual step of threatening to issue a witness summons before the information we requested was received.

“Concerningly, we also identified a case where the Council’s response to a resident’s original complaint was very poor.”

The LGSCO recommended that officials at Doncaster Council compare their data with that of other local authorities with lower complaint upholds.

Overall, in 2022/3, Doncaster Council’s number of complaints across all of its partner organisations reduced by 459, to 2,398.

In a meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Management Committee next week, councillors will analyse the yearly report on complaints as well as the LGSCO’s letter to identify areas for improvement.