Issue - meetings

The Assistant Director of Housing Management and Enforcement presented a report outlining the annual overview from the Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO).

The LGSCO received 10 enquiries and complaints during 2021/22, one of which was subject to a detailed investigation.

The LGSCO decided 10 complaints, of which 1 case was decided ‘a service failure’, 7 were closed ‘with no further investigation’ after initial enquiries and in 2 cases there was no ‘Maladministration and injustice’.

The Council received three complaints via the Housing Ombudsman (HO) for the same period, one of which was decided during that period.  In that case the decision was that there was ‘no maladministration’.

A discussion took place in relation to the benchmarking data provided.  Currently the Authority was benchmarked against six other authorities from across Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, within its CIPFA Nearest Neighbour group.  There was mixed opinion from Members as to the usefulness of this with some for and against using such a range of authorities.  It was agreed that moving forward, the focus would be on comparison with North Derbyshire authorities only (Chesterfield and North-East Derbyshire) rather than a wider group.

Moved by Councillor Ray Heffer and seconded by Councillor Rose Bowler.

RESOLVED that Scrutiny receive and note the report and the Annual Letter from the Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman 2021/22.

(Assistant Director of Housing Management & Enforcement/

Customer Services Manager/ Customer Standards & Complaints Officer)