Compliments & Complaints Annual Report 2024 to 2025

Decisions to make a compensation payment are made by individual services, with engagement of the Senior Complaints & Improvements Officers who provide robust advice utilising benchmarking from previous Ombudsman decisions and Guidance on remedies - Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, which outlines the principles guiding their consideration of remedies for injustice.

Compensation covers reimbursements, goodwill payments, and LGSCO injustice awards.

• Reimbursements – these are payments made in respect of some sort of missed provision/service. They are designed to deal with the fault by putting the customer back in the same position they would have been in financially had the fault not occurred.
• Goodwill – these payments are made in respect of any distress and inconvenience the issue has caused. These are one off payment and are discretionary.
• LGSCO – when a complainant escalates their complaint to the Ombudsman and fault causing injustice is found there may be an award made to remedy the fault.

If fault is determined during a complaint’s investigation, appropriate financial compensation may be recommended. In 2024/25, the Council paid £114,751 in compensation for 100 complaints at various stages, a decrease from £168,190 (106) the previous year.

This year has seen a decrease in the number of awards recommended by the Ombudsman. The 'invite to remedy' process is used when the Ombudsman is likely to find fault with an injustice and considers the remedy proposed by the Council to be inadequate. The Ombudsman requests the Council to address the complaint in accordance with their recommendation. Reaching an agreement on this prevents the need for an Ombudsman investigation. This situation may not always involve monetary compensation; it could include providing a service or conducting a review. However, most instances are due to an insufficient financial remedy offer, utilising this process may have contributed to the decrease in cases.

In 2024/25, the Council paid out £56,425 in reimbursements with £47,886 of this in respect of Children’s Services across 21 cases. The Ombudsman awarded a total of £12,935 for twenty-two cases across SEND (9), Housing (3), South Waste (2), Adult Social Care (4), Buckinghamshire Highways (2), Children’s Social Care (1), Environmental Health (1). Goodwill payments totalled £44,992 covering fifty-six complaints, including SEND (43), Children’s Social Care (3), Client Transport (1), Housing (1), Waste Services (3), Revenues & Benefits (2), Children’s Social Care (3).