Complaints data for councils in the North West region for 2023-24 have been released by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.
It forms part of the Ombudsman's annual release of statistics on the complaints it receives and investigates about all local authorities in England for the previous 12 months.
During the year ending 31st March 2024, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman upheld 76% of complaints they investigated against Cheshire East Council. This compares to an average of 79% in similar organisations.
A total of 25 investigations took place during the year and there were 19 upheld decisions. The Ombudsman uphold complaints when they find fault in an organisation's actions, including where the organisation accepted fault before they investigated.
The Ombudsman then recommends ways for organisations to put things right when faults have caused injustice and monitor their compliance with our recommendations. In 100% of cases they were satisfied Cheshire East Council had successfully implemented our recommendations.
In 16% of upheld cases they found CEC had provided a satisfactory remedy before the complaint reached the Ombudsman. The statistics are based on a total of 19 upheld decisions for the period between 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024, in two of which they found three satisfactory remedy decisions had been provided.
Click here to view all the decision for CEC.
In the North West:
- 11.0% of complaints and enquiries were received from this region.
- The ombudsman received 1,928 complaints, which equated to 25.7 complaints received per 100,000 residents, below the average across all regions of 30.6, but higher than Yorkshire and The Humber (24.2) and East Midlands (25.2).
- 31% of complaints and enquiries received were about Children and Education, above the average for all regions (27%). With 8.0 complaints and enquiries received per 100,000 residents in this category, this stood just below the average for all regions of 8.2.
- 17% of complaints and enquiries received were about Adult Care Services. This was higher than the average for all regions (14%). With 4.4 complaints and enquiries received per 100,000 residents in this category, this was in line with the average for all regions.
- Only 8% of complaints and enquiries received were about Housing, less than the average for all regions of 17%. With 2.0 complaints and enquiries received per 100,000 residents in this category, the region was well below the average for all regions of 5.2 and was the lowest of all the regions for complaints in this category.
- The overall uphold rate for the region was 78%, compared with an average of 80% for all regions. A total of 307 upheld decisions equated to 4.1 upheld decisions per 100,000 residents, below the average of 5.6 for all regions.
- The uphold rates in the two categories with the highest number of upheld complaints stood at 90% for Education & Children's Services (130 upheld decisions) and 87% for Adult Care Services (86 upheld decisions).
