Few complaints

Context behind council criticism

IT IS important that complaints against town halls, as highlighted by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman’s annual report, is placed in wider context.

Even though cases are up, as they are across the country, this is, in many ways, to be expected as more people become aware of their ‘rights’ when services fall short of the standards that they expect and demand.

But it should be pointed out that the complainants represent a tiny proportion of the number of people – and families – that councils do serve on a daily basis, and still do, after a decade of spending restraint.

And the key is making sure town halls – and other public bodies – respond swiftly to complaints, and then learn and implement the relevant lessons, before the Ombudsman ever becomes involved. That’s the ultimate objective. Yet this is not without its challenges when successive Prime Ministers, including Boris Johnson, have failed to reform social care and come up with a funding solution that reflects the needs of an ageing society.

Significantly social care is excluded from this report – it will be the subject of a separate critique – but the current policy vacuum compromises public and private care providers as they try to main standards under the tightest of financial backdrops.

Perhaps Michael King, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, might care to acknowledge this when he next reports and join the growing calls, led by for Parliament to start addressing the future needs of the elderly, vulnerable and all those that care for them. This cannot happen a day too soon.