THE chief executive of BCP Council has been urged to consider how the local authority prioritises complaints.

The head of the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGO) told Graham Farrant that he was also concerned that his organisation had to resort to “unusual action” of issuing a witness summons in one complaint investigation.

An annual review by the LGO in relation to councils found that 65 per cent of its investigations into complaints it received were upheld between April 21 and March 31.

This involved 22 upheld decision compared to just nine upheld decisions the previous year, with complaints stood up in relation to variety of services, including special educational needs support, residential care and private housing.

The LGO issued one public report in the council after an investigation found the local authority failed to accept an aunt and uncle as family foster carers.

Michael King, the local government and social care ombudsman and chair of the commission for local administration in England, sent a letter to council chief executive Graham Farrant to highlight concerns about how complaints are dealt with.

Mr King’s letter said: “I have been made aware of several cases this year where there was significant delay in the Council responding to our enquiries, across all areas of service.

“At its most serious, we threatened to issue a witness summons in one investigation and issued a summons in another. It is concerning that we needed to resort to this unusual action to get the information we needed.

“I would therefore ask that if the council is unable to respond to our enquiries in a timely fashion, to please communicate any difficulties with us promptly. If there is any support we can provide, please feel free to contact my office.”

Mr King said the council and the LGO had been through a period of adaptation as Covid restrictions were lifted, with some pre-pandemic practices returning and, in some areas, new ways of working had remained.

“It is my continued view that complaint functions have been under-resourced in recent years, a trend only exacerbated by the challenges of the pandemic,” Mr King said.

“Through the lens of this recent upheaval and adjustment, I urge you to consider how your organisation prioritises complaints, particularly in terms of capacity and visibility.

“Properly resourced complaint functions that are well-connected and valued by service areas, management teams and elected members are capable of providing valuable insight about an organisation’s performance, detecting early warning signs of problems and offering opportunities to improve service delivery.”

A BCP Council spokesperson said: “We’re taking the ombudsman’s feedback very seriously and are looking at how we can improve in the areas identified.

“To that end, we’ll be taking a paper to cabinet in autumn with details of the steps we plan to take to make these improvements, including to response times and prioritisation, which should all contribute to reducing the number of complaints in the first place.

“Meanwhile BCP Council will continue to review the learning from upheld complaints and will continue to take steps to improve our systems and procedures to avoid our residents having to complain to the ombudsman if we get things wrong.”