"Coventry City Council subject of more than 100 complaints to government watchdog"
Posted: Wed Dec 28, 2016 2:21 pmThe Local Government Ombudsman upheld 11 complaints and the council was forced to payout £7,862
Coventry City Council was referred to the council watchdog 109 times in 12 months according to the latest figures.
The Local Government Ombudsman (LGO), which deals with complaints about councils from members of the public, has published its annual report detailing the number and nature of issues lodged with them.
The figures show Coventry council was complained about 109 times: 20 times about education or children’s services; 21 times over environment services; 20 over roads or transport; six over housing and three over planning.
That placed them 39th nationally in terms of how many times they were referred to the LGO.
The data was collected between April 2015 and March 2016 and shows that only 22 of the complaints were deemed to warrant investigation by the LGO.
Of those 22, 11 were upheld.
That is a slight increase from the previous year when nine complaints were upheld by the council watchdog.
Of the 11 complaints upheld, six resulted in the council being forced to pay out money - a total of £7,862.
A council spokesman said the payments broke down as follows:
£6,700 payment in children’s social care relating to two cases, a child protection investigation and subsequent delays in completing a complaints process and an adoption process
£925 payment in adult social care relating to two cases due to delays in an assessment and referral and communication. The council has pledged to improve its joint working arrangements with housing associations and review arrangements for communication between care homes.
£237 payment in relation to errors in two council tax cases.
I'm not sure what the point of this article is? Are they saying it's high compared to other local authorities or low? Looks like a space filler to me.
