Dear Mr Nunn

Follow-up to FOI request F0003369

I refer to your request for an Interval Review on our response dated 20^th October on F0003369.

The Internal Reviewer's letter of 18^th November, concluded that aspects of our reply to F0003369 could have been clarified in more detail.

In seeking to expand on my earlier reply, I am taking this opportunity to respond to the question in your request for an internal review.

My earlier letter of 20^th October set out the how the Department monitors complaints, and further set out the types of communication it monitors and those that it does not record or monitor.

In your FOI request you ask how the Department keeps ministers aware of the number of complaints against the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO). As set out in my earlier letter, Ministers reply to letters sent to them by MPs or Peers, which may have letters from constituents enclosed. In this way Minsters are able to see not only the Ministerial letter but also any enclosures from the constituents on Local Government Ombudsman issues, including complaints.

In your request for an internal review, dated 21^st October, you ask how we know not all complaints are about the LGO if we do not record what the correspondence is about.

The reason we know that not all correspondence about the Local Government Ombudsman are complaints is because correspondence received by this Department on the Local Government Ombudsman is forwarded to the team who have sponsorship responsibility for the Local Government Ombudsman. As explained in my earlier response, this is received by the team in a variety of formats. While we do not keep a record of the correspondence, we do have a view on what the correspondence is about. In addition to receiving correspondence on complaints about the outcome of an investigation, we also receive other LGO correspondence, ranging from extending the remit of the LGO to the enforcement powers of the LGO.

Hence, our correspondence about the LGO cannot be said to be exclusively complaints about the LGO.

Yours sincerely

Vanita Patel