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Local Government &
Social Care 
OMBUDSMAN 
How to complain about a council 
This leaflet explains how we can help with complaints about councils and 
other organisations. 
This leaflet is on our website. Or you can call us if you need more 
information.
Who we are
We look at complaints about: 
 
councils
 
some other authorities, including education admissions appeal panels 
 
all types of care services for adults, including care in a residential home or 
care at home. 
In this leaflet when we refer to ‘councils’ and ‘councillors’ - this applies to all
the organisations that we can investigate. There’s a full list on our website or
you can call us and ask if you’re not sure if we can deal with your complaint. 
We investigate complaints in a fair way – we do not take sides. 
Our service is free. 

What we can do 
We can look at complaints about most council services, including those 
covering:
 
housing (we can only look at some types of housing complaint, we will tell 
you if you need to ask the Housing Ombudsman to look at your complaint) 
 
planning 
 
education 
 
transport and highways 
 
environmental health 
 
neighbour nuisance and anti-social behaviour
 
adult social care and support. 
We have a separate leaflet which explains what to do if you or a member of
your family has a complaint about adult social care services. It applies whether
you or your local council are paying for your care. 
We can look at complaints about things that have gone wrong in the way a 
service has been given or the way a decision has been made, if this has caused
problems for you. For example, you may want to complain about: 
 
administrative fault, such as the council making a mistake or not following 
its own rules 
 
poor service or no service 
 
delay, or 
 
bad advice.
If we find that the council has done something wrong, we will try to get it
to put the matter right. What we ask the council to do will depend on the
particular complaint, what went wrong and how this affected you.
If you’re not sure whether we can look at your complaint, call us on  
0300 061 0614 or go to our website awww.lgo.org.uk.
What we can’t do
The law says we can decide whether to look at your complaint.
We cannot usually question what a council has done simply because you do 
not agree with it.
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We may not look at your complaint if you’re only slightly affected by what 
has gone wrong or if it is not likely that we would find fault in what has
happened.
There are some things we do not have the power to look at. For example, if
you are already taking action in the courts about the problem. If we can’t help,
we will tell you about other organisations that may be able to help.
Making a complaint 
If you have a complaint, the first step is to complain to the council. You can
ask the council how to complain or you can ask a councillor to help. In most
cases, we will only look at a complaint after the council has had a fair chance
to deal with it. Councils often have more than one stage in their complaints
procedure. You will usually have to complete all stages before we will look at 
your complaint.
If you are not happy with the response you receive from the council, or you 
do not get an answer within a reasonable time, you can complain to us. We 
think up to 12 weeks is a reasonable time for the council to look at your 
complaint and reply to you. In some cases we might ask you to give the 
council more time to deal with your complaint. This is because it may be 
able to put things right.
Usually, you should complain to us within 12 months of when you first knew 
about the problem. If you leave it any later, we may not be able to help.
How we will deal with your complaint
If we can deal with your complaint, we will gather the facts and look at 
whether something has gone wrong that has caused you problems. 
If we find that the council has done something wrong and we can see you 
have been personally affected, we will try and get it to put the matter right. 
What we ask the council to do will depend on the complaint. It will depend on 
what went wrong and how it affected you. 
If we can, we will send you copies of the information we have relied upon to
make our decision on your complaint. 
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Some complaints can cover both health and social care. These are
investigated by a team we set up jointly with the Parliamentary and Health 
Service Ombudsman. We will tell you if we think this team should investigate 
your complaint and ask for your consent before sharing information about 
your complaint. 
Our investigations are private. You should not give people who work for
the media any information which we gave to you while investigating your
complaint. 
We will not identify people in the information we publish. 
What the outcome might be 
We will make one of the following decisions.
 >Uphold your complaint and recommend how the council should put things 
right
 
Uphold part of your complaint
 
Uphold your complaint but not make any recommendations because the 
council has put things right by the time we finish looking at the complaint
 
Uphold your complaint but not make any recommendations as we think 
the fault didn’t have a significant effect on you 
 
Not uphold your complaint
To put things right we might ask the council to:
 
apologise
 
provide the service 
 
make a decision that it should have made before
 
look again at a decision that it did not take properly in the first place
 
improve its procedures so similar problems don’t happen again
 
make a payment.
Publishing our decisions 
 
We publish most of our decisions on our website three months after the 
date of the decision.
 
In a small number of cases we find issues that other councils could learn 
from, or the public should know about. In these cases we will publish a 
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detailed report of the investigation on our website. The council has to put a 
notice in a local newspaper about the report. We may also send the report 
to the media with a press release. 
 
If a council does not agree with our recommendations we can issue a 
further report. A further report explains that an authority has not carried out 
our recommendations. The council has to put a notice in a local newspaper 
and we may send the report to the media with a press release. 
 
We may decide not to publish a decision or report if we think there is a risk 
that you could be identified. 
How to complain
Go to our website at www.lgo.org.uk for more information about our service
and an online complaint form.  
Call us on 0300 061 0614* to talk about your complaint. We can take the
details by phone so you don’t have to complain in writing. 
We welcome calls from textphone users using Next Generation Text. (This
used to be called Text Relay or Typetalk.)
Text call back to 0762 481 1595
*Calling us will cost the same (or less) as calling a national rate number
starting 01 or 02. Calls to numbers starting 03 counts towards any inclusive
minutes in the same way as calls to numbers starting 01 or 02. This applies
to calls from any type of line including mobiles, BT lines, other fixed phone
lines and payphones. We may record calls for quality and training purposes. 
Meeting your needs 
Our service is for everyone who needs it. 
Please let us know if you need us to adapt the way we communicate so you
can use our service.
We will try to communicate with you in the way you have requested. However
we must use public money carefully so what we can offer will depend on our
resources (for example staff time and money). 
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Key facts
 
We make our decisions independently of all government departments, 
councils and politicians.
 
We look at complaints without taking sides. We are not consumer 
champions.
 
The Ombudsman is appointed by Her Majesty the Queen.
 
We have the same powers as the High Court to obtain information and
 documents.
 
Our decisions are final and cannot be appealed. However, you can
  challenge them in the High Court if you think our reasoning has a legal flaw.
 
We do not have to investigate every complaint we  receive, even if we have 
the power to do so. For example, we may decide not to investigate if we 
think the problem you mention would have affected you only slightly.
 
We are committed to providing a fair service and spending public money 
effectively.
 
When we find that a council has done something wrong, we may 
recommend how it should put it right. Although we cannot make councils 
do what we recommend, they are almost always willing to act on what we 
say.
V2 June 2017
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