13 July 2007
Councils and their partners need to make clear who disgruntled citizens should complain to about jointly delivered services, the local government ombudsman said this week.
Tony Redmond said there was evidence that governance arrangements did not always work well when councils were acting in partnership with other agencies.
He warned that unless local government took on board his recommendations, it could expect to continue to receive complaints about partnership working.
'The reason that we're advocating these improvements is very much in the interests of local authorities,' he told Public Finance. 'They can actually, as a result, reduce the number of complaints they're likely to experience if they put in good governance arrangements. But it's not an easy situation.'
The ombudsman's July 10 report, Local partnership and citizen redress, includes numerous examples of problems.
One case study detailed the experience of Mr D, who was receiving services from both the NHS and social services through the local mental healthcare partnership.
As well as not being told how to access the statutory complaints procedure, Mr D was wrongly informed that the council was dealing with his complaint when it had in fact been passed to the partnership body.
He ended up waiting for two years before obtaining the final decision on his complaint.
'Complainants want one point of reference, they want their complaint resolved, and they want it resolved quickly,' Redmond said.
'The rights of citizens and service users to access complaints systems and to obtain redress should not be diminished as a result of shared responsibility for the delivery of services.'
The report makes a series of recommendations to help councils tackle the issue. For example, partnerships need to clearly define their roles and responsibilities and local authorities should develop a complaints protocol for each of the partnerships they are involved in, and regularly monitor and review progress.
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