LG & SC Ombudsman Arvostelua 355

The Local Government Ombudsman twice declined to investigate Hertfordshire County Council's intentional omission of yellow-lining on the narrow road behind our property, upon which the presence of parked vehicles has caused repeated damage to this property which we have had to repair at our own expense. The Council's actions in permitting this parking also amount to a breach of section 130 of the Highways Act 1980, as large vehicles run over the verge in the presence on this narrow road of parked vehicles, and struggle to enter or to leave our side-street due to these parked vehicles. Eventually, my e-mail address was cut off by Jane Stewart - one of the managers at the Ombudsman, who repeatedly refused to listen.

The experiences with the Ombudsman took place earlier than the date shown. But its shocking ruthlessness necessitates recording here.

I have escalated numerous complaints concerning various Councils to this extremely sinister organisation. As other reviewers have pointed out, various very important complaints are frequently completely omitted from any final decision, and I have taken the view that that is no accidental error, and concur that this organisation is by no means impartial.

More recently, I complained about East Hertfordshire District Council's ("the Council") practices in respect to allocating priority on medical grounds on its housing register, amongst other things. The vast majority of those issues were completely overlooked by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman ("the Ombudsman"), true to form, which, as I say, was no accident in my honest opinion.

I would ask that people who apply to join the Council's housing register due to a medical need note as follows:

The Council automatically accepts the advice of its independent medical advisor, allegedly a GP, who remains anonymous (and may not be a legitimate medical professional at all), on numerous occasions. This conduct is a flagrant departure from the Ombudsman’s guidance titled Medical assessments for housing applications, not least because said conduct flies in the face of the following:

“independence: councils should make their own decisions about medical needs, taking into account all the evidence, and not automatically accept the view of the independent medical adviser”

The Council also departed from said guidance in the following respects:

a) The Council fails to keep kept a proper record to show how it considered the evidence in the context of its allocation scheme, and how it has weighed any conflicting evidence.

b) The Council fails to make its own decision and failed to make this clear in its decision letter. For example, it should not be saying “its medical adviser has decided”. The Council nonetheless does exactly that, even after being referred to said guidance, whilst indeed being sent a copy of the same.

c) The Council fails to properly explain its reasons for making decisions of this kind to the applicant in decision letters. In the case of a refusal, the decision letter should explain why the medical evidence the applicant provided was discounted or was not sufficient to award priority or was only sufficient to award a lower level of priority. This was not done.

Further, case law makes plain that a Council’s external medical advice cannot be considered reliable in circumstances where the medical advisor has not examined the applicant (this applies to both homelessness cases and decisions on banding priority. Indeed, there is no good reason why it should not). In Guiste v The London Borough of Lambeth [2019] EWCA Civ 1758 at [9]:

“It follows that the function of such external advice is to enable the authority "to understand the medical issues and to evaluate itself the expert evidence placed before it." In the absence of an examination of the patient, the advice "cannot itself ordinarily constitute expert evidence of the applicant's condition"".

The Council's alleged medical advisor does not examine applicants, but the Council nonetheless automatically accepts the alleged expert advice it allegedly receives, notwithstanding the fact that this practice was shown to be wrong.

It then gets worse, as the Council automatically accepts the opinion of its alleged GP over a consultant. In Shala v Birmingham City Council [2007] EWCA Civ 624 at [22]:

“It is appropriate in this light to consider the role of a practitioner such as Dr Keen. While this court in Hall v Wandsworth LBC [2005] HLR 23, §42, described his report to the local authority as constituting not merely commonsense comment but expert advice, the limited extent and character of his expertise has to be borne in mind by those using his services. As another constitution of this court pointed out in Khelassi v Brent LBC [2006] EWCA Civ 1825, §9, 22, Dr Keen is not a psychiatrist, with the result that the county court judge had been fully entitled to regard his dismissive comments on a qualified psychiatrist's report insufficiently authoritative for the local authority to rely on. In this situation a local authority weighing his comments against the report of a qualified psychiatrist must not fall into the trap of thinking that it is comparing like with like. His advice has the function of enabling the authority to understand the medical issues and to evaluate for itself the expert evidence placed before it. Absent an examination of the patient, his advice cannot itself ordinarily constitute expert evidence of the applicant's condition.”

Needless to say, the Ombudsman just looked the other way in regards to all of the above, and additional serious concerns.

Dire
I am trying to get a complaint resolved regarding my mum getting entitled free care …. Absolutely disgusting the way we have been treated… I sent in my complaint Nov 2025…it’s May 2026.. still not heard from the ombudsman… WTF .?

Camden Council did not provide care home accommodation for a very ill man leaving hospital, they offered a temporary placement when having to move again would be detrimental to the healthy of the this elderly and very sick person. The Ombudsman refused to investigate because they said that the decision was not fatal despite the fact that this elderly person died very soon afterwards

On a new occasion, they couldn't wait to tell me I hadn't enough evidence. But they did this by sending an email from a No reply address. They did it without calling me to discuss what I explained so far. The fact is, the Equality Advisory and Support Services are involved and it's serious - but then, all our complaints are serious. They are always ongoing, while we wait for LGSCO support. What on earth is this organisation for?
***
This was my original post:
A reasonable formal complaint was referred to this ombudsman service. Communications were immediately tricky and ultimately I was very unhappy with the outcome.
This phrase has been borrowed from a post below: Without doubt the LGSCO needs to be regulated.

As so many before have said, do not waste any time and effort contacting yet another inept taxpayer funded operation. It has taken 5 months for a complaint to be considered and subsequently dismissed within 2 hours of the complaint being reviewed, stating insufficient evidence of loss! There were however documented evidence of the local council not following their own guidelines/procedures but this has been overlooked and the complaint dismissed. How on earth are we to get the Local Councils to improve when documented failings are dismissed with no guidance to improve! Dreadful!

Terrible. The LGSCO have not bothered to read and understand our complaint properly. We complained about the handling of our daughters EHCP by the local education authority. The LEA had acted dishonestly by sending paperwork to the wrong address and ignoring the legal tests that need to be met for a needs assessment which significantly delayed the issue of the EHCP. The LGSCO dismissed our complaint on the grounds they claim new information was submitted at mediation, ignoring the fact that the legal tests were met at the time the application was made, and that the LEA did not know parents were funding support, which is irrelevant and factually incorrect. In challenging the decision and pointing out various facts, the LGSCO claimed we had changed our mind about certain elements which is simply not true. The LGSCO have also completely ignored the dishonestly of the LEA in issuing paperwork to the wrong address and disregarded the legal tests. The LGSCO are facilitating LEAs everywhere to kick the can down the road as much as they like when it comes to the EHCP process and are failing children up and down the country.

I made an FOI request for information about an unsuccessful complaint regarding a care home in their decision notices. I had had to complain about the same care home chain and I saw similarities in the two complaints. My complaint had had to go to the dreadful PHSO not the LG and SCO, but I knew from another unrelated complaint that the LG and SCO staff were perfectly capable of cherry-picking bits of a complaint and failing to say they had ignored part of the complaint in the decision notice.
The response to my FOI request was that after a year they destroyed all paperwork so I was out of time with my request. So; if you see a decision that looks similar to your own complaint or you think something is missing; make an FOI request fast. Also; if you wish to make a Subject Access Request for your own information handled by the Ombudsman staff, do that within a year too.

Totally pointless.

Utter waste of time that isnt fit for purpose.

I had a freedom of information released that said the council would never do, what i had in black and white thay they did do.

The ombudman didnt even address my complaint fully. They picked one part. Cherry picked the things the council said that supported closing my case and ignored the parts the council did say that validated my complaint.

Utterly useless and bias.

This review is my seasoned perspective as someone who has won around 10 complaints to LGO about notoriously corrupt lambeth council.

Unfortunately councils operate like organised crime groups and since they're untouchable, avenues for resolution are limited. LGO is not an adequate option but it's the only one, since councils ignore CCJs so you end up losing court and bailiff fees.

LGO takes on average 2 years to investigate council complaints, but before they do that, they will ignore you and claim (lambeth) council needs "more time " to respond when they've not responded for 8 months. I usually resend my complaint to LGO 5x before they reluctantly start the 2 year process. They hope you will give up, so dont!

The most you will get at the end is £500 so decide whether or not it's worth it.

LGO refuses to provide updates during the 2 year process, so you have no idea of the status of your complaint.

Now for the kicker: they will demand that you as the complainant provide evidence for all your assertions, but they blindly accept whatever council staff tell them without verifying it. Council staff routinely lie to LGO. So check everything and demand evidence. In one case, LGO blindly accepted false accounting from a corrupt council employee when I could prove his calculations were fraudulent with evidence from hmrc.

Second kicker: LGO has no enforcement powers, so cannot compel councils to implement agreed resolutions.
You will therefore need to raise another complaint with LGO, but not before first complaining to the council and then starting the whole 2 year process again!

So understand that trying to hold the council to account is a years-long endeavour that needs to be treated as a hobby or project.

Lambeth council has breached one particular LGO decision six times. So six times I've had to go back to LGO and complain about a breach of the agreed resolution. The council does this deliberately to antagonise complainants. After all, it only costs them £500 of taxpayer's money each time. It's all a joke to them.

At the end of your complaint, make a SAR to LGO. These are very enlightening as you get to see the lies the council told and you also see that LGO and councils are pally pally with smiley face emojis on their emails.

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman is sold to the public as an independent watchdog that holds councils accountable when they fail residents. In practice, it functions more like a case-closing machine that shields councils from proper scrutiny.
My experience was stark. After nearly two years of repeated bin collection failures, false “bin not out” records, failed monitoring periods, and clear signs of retaliatory targeting, the Ombudsman acknowledged fault but then rubber-stamped the Council’s ineffective apologies and monitoring as “appropriate and proportionate”. The underlying problem continues to this day. The decision simply closed the file.
Even worse, when I requested a review pointing out factual errors and ignored evidence, the Assistant Ombudsman rejected it in a handful of lines, addressing only one narrow procedural point while completely ignoring the rest. This is not oversight — it is administrative convenience dressed up as process.
The structural problem is obvious: there is no meaningful external check on Ombudsman decisions short of judicial review in the High Court — a route that is expensive, complex, and out of reach for ordinary residents. As a result, flawed decisions stand, poor council performance is normalised, and residents are left exactly where they started.
The LGSCO is funded by public money to protect citizens from maladministration. Instead, it appears to prioritise workload management and case closure over genuine resolution. This is not just disappointing — it is a betrayal of its statutory purpose and a waste of taxpayers’ money.
The system urgently needs independent evaluation. Parliament and government should examine whether the Ombudsman’s review process actually works, whether it properly addresses persistent and systemic failures, and whether the lack of real accountability is undermining public confidence in local government oversight.
Until that happens, the LGSCO risks becoming part of the problem rather than the solution.

Very poor experience with this organisation. Took months to respond to what should have been a simple case. In my opinion and based on my experience LGSCO are biased, a view which appears to be shared by most other reviewers. I would certainly not recommend.

I would prefer not to give them even one star but it doesn't work like that. I complained to my local social services about the support (or rather lack of support) they had deemed appropriate for my son, who has a learning disability. When I didn't get any joy from them I took my complaint to the Local Ombudsman. I was under the impression that they would be able to judge the fairness of the assessment of my son made by DCC social services and the lack of appropriate provision made in his budget. I was not informed at the start of the process that the Local Ombudsman would only be able to investigate whether social services had looked into my complaint. I think it should be made clear to people before the Ombudsman takes on their case that they are only able to look at whether the county council in question has investigated the complaint and as long as a Lead Disability person (who has never met the cared-for person) and is relying on reports from a social worker (who has only met him twice) has written an email concerning the complaint then that will be considered as sufficient action taken to investigate the complaint.
When I tried to complain to the Local Ombudsman about their service I found the staff of the Coventry branch of the Local Ombudsman very rude, arrogant and even threatening, telling me I could ask for a judicial review but warning me that I could be liable to pay betweeen £2,000 to £3,000 if I was unsucessful.
I made several complaints, even going so far as to write to the Chief Executive, Amardeep Clarke but I never received any apology from them for wasting my time for a whole year!

Our local councill have wasted £40000
Of tax payeres money on a so called redressing of the road out side of my house.
It is now worse than before no one at bristol city councill will take action on this matter and lc & sc onbidsmon have closed the case after an 18 week delay
Due to lack of evedence .
Do thease people not have eyes can they not see or is that they are just unintrested in taxpayers money being wasted

Investigator ignored evidence and refused to investigate on incorrect facts
My experience with the Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman was extremely poor and has seriously undermined my confidence in the service.
The issue was not simply that my complaint was rejected — it was the way the investigator handled it.
I provided a fully evidenced complaint about a council’s failure to comply with agreed Flood Risk Assessment safeguards, causing ongoing flood risk, loss of amenity and significant distress. I supplied:
• a detailed chronology
• documentary evidence
• written confirmations from previous Ombudsman investigators
• and a formal Council letter explicitly accepting my complaint for investigation after review
Despite this, the investigator refused to investigate on the basis that the issue had “already been investigated”.
This was demonstrably wrong.
The Council itself had confirmed in writing that the complaint was new and would be “thoroughly investigated” and a “comprehensive response” provided. Yet this key document was simply ignored.
The investigator:
• disregarded relevant evidence
• failed to address determinative submissions
• relied on incorrect factual assumptions
• mischaracterised the scope of the complaint
• adopted the Council’s position without scrutiny
• and provided reasoning that directly contradicted the documentary record
There was no meaningful engagement with the evidence I provided. It felt like the conclusion had already been decided and the facts were made to fit.
Most concerningly, the Ombudsman refused to investigate because it claimed the Council already had — while the Council said it had not and had accepted the complaint for investigation. Both positions cannot logically be true, yet the investigator did not address this contradiction.
The result is that neither the Council nor the Ombudsman has actually examined the substantive issue. The complaint has simply been pushed away on procedural grounds.
That is not independent oversight.
It is not impartial.
And it is not what the Ombudsman service exists to provide.
I expected a fair, evidence-based review. Instead, I experienced a process where key facts were overlooked and the investigator appeared to side with the authority being complained about.
Very disappointing and far below the standard of accountability the public should expect.

⭐☆☆☆☆
Escalation to Senior Management – Serious Safeguarding and Accountability Failure

I am posting this to ensure senior management visibility, as my experience has revealed a serious breakdown in safeguarding accountability and transparency.

I raised safeguarding concerns about my vulnerable parent. Manchester City Council acknowledged the concerns, carried out internal processes, and closed the matter. I then escalated to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.

The Ombudsman has now refused to investigate, not because the concerns lacked seriousness, but because they say “no worthwhile outcome is achievable” and that unresolved family conflict places the matter outside their remit. They have directed that only the Court of Protection can resolve the situation.

This outcome highlights a deeply troubling gap in the system:
• Safeguarding concerns are effectively closed without independent scrutiny
• Family conflict is used as a reason not to investigate, rather than as a safeguarding risk factor
• The complainant is denied access to information, while being told they lack authority to challenge decisions
• Responsibility is repeatedly deflected between institutions, leaving vulnerable people without effective protection

At no point has there been meaningful accountability, transparency, or reassurance that safeguarding failures cannot recur.

I am sharing this publicly so that senior leaders are aware that the current processes allow serious safeguarding concerns to be dismissed procedurally rather than addressed substantively.

This is not about dissatisfaction with an outcome — it is about a systemic failure to provide effective safeguarding oversight.

Not only do they send template rejections, but their 'info@' email address is dead (550 error), and their 'intake' address is restricted. They have effectively insulated themselves from accountability. If you want to challenge a decision, they make it as technically difficult as possible.

The LGSCO’s latest Annual Report reveals they are funded by a £12.5 million grant from the public purse, with £10.95 million spent on staffing. Despite their own accounts stating that each case costs the taxpayer an average of £887, my experience suggests this money is being wasted on a "reject-by-default" culture.

I raised a specific, nuanced query regarding the Council’s corporate accounting methodology and transparency—a clear matter of local government administration. Instead of a reasoned legal determination, I was met with three successive template responses. When I challenged this, Intake Team Manager Andrew Grice issued a "final" refusal to correspond further, effectively deadlocking the case without ever addressing the point of law raised.

It is a disgrace that a public body, costing nearly £900 per case, uses its resources to insulate itself from accountability rather than investigating systemic maladministration. They are failing their statutory duty under the Local Government Act 1974 while hiding behind a "finality" clause to silence legitimate grievances.

I am now escalating this service failure to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO). Taxpayers deserve an ombudsman that investigates, not one that manages its backlog by issuing formulaic rejections.

The LGO presents itself as an independent watchdog. In reality, it functions as a protective buffer for councils rather than for the public.

In my case, Sheffield City Council failed to engage with the vast majority of medical and professional evidence submitted about my disabled mother, relied on demonstrably incorrect facts, and ultimately told me they would “no longer reply” or accept further evidence. This is something the Ombudsman has previously ruled unlawful in other cases.

Rather than scrutinise this behaviour, the LGO chose to defend it. They repeatedly reframed my complaint as a disagreement with a housing decision, even though the core issue was that evidence had never been properly considered in the first place. When I challenged this, I was told that “it is not for us to consider medical evidence” – missing the point entirely. The problem was not their clinical judgment; it was their refusal to examine whether the council had ignored evidence at all.

The Ombudsman also accepted a council narrative about a housing “bid” based on redacted system logs that did not actually show who placed it, while dismissing my documented challenge to that claim. Safeguarding concerns, ignored correspondence from MPs, and a disregarded Pre-Action Protocol letter were effectively brushed aside as out of scope.

Even when the Ombudsman acknowledged that Sheffield had given unlawful advice to external applicants, they treated this as a one-off mistake and declined to consider whether others might have been affected. That choice prioritises institutional convenience over public protection.

If you are seeking genuine accountability, robust evidence handling, or meaningful scrutiny of council behaviour, this is not the service you will receive.

LGSCO are responsible for having forced me down to a point in my life where I dread night time, and even the start of a new day due to constant noise.
There now exists a continuous disregard by governmental organisations to ignore illegal exploitation of people running business's from their homes.
This is destroying what was once the right of every living person, to enjoy the peace and quiet of their own homes.
For over a decade I have suffered 24/7 machinery noise followed up by outrageous slamming and banging from neighbours working from home and enjoying tax free cash.

My neighbours House/Factory, is completely ignored and even possibly condoned by both the council and their so-called (HE) noise services.
Instead of helping me, they made me their victim by reversing complaints to make me the one that got investigated.

Years ago you could at least phone the police and there intervention tended to have a more lasting effect.
However, these days you have to rely on what can only be described as a complete denial service from council organisations.

Even turning to the Ombudsman is now a completely pointless act.
First you have to subscribe to their limited service, and I say limited because they even tell you off if you send them information they haven't requested.
This information would normally provide proof such as accusations made within council replies.
Its difficult to correspond clearly, and signing in is also compulsory.
You have no clear way to send them anything other than the start and end rejection of your complaint by the BCC.
Therefore no details of wrongdoings are included, which is clearly designed for them to simply shut you down.
Its bad enough that people are already suffering, but this ridiculous lack of clear communication puts an even greater strain on people.

I'm personally disgusted and its about time councils and their so-called backup services were privatised.
The contemptuous and cavalier attitudes that I have experienced would leave me with a strong opinion that random drug testing should be carried out on governmental service employees.
Just as they do in many sports, which clearly makes the suggestion nothing outrageous!

I'm well aware that there are people out there suffering much worse than myself, so all I can say is stay strong my friends, club together, and we'll keep on fighting for our justice!

The Ombudsman service was once quite good, but LGSCO now appears to be shielding councils along with their unfit for purpose services!