The Council has decided to approve recommendations following the review of the annual ombudsman's letter and cases.

URL: https://democracy.runnymede.gov.uk/ieDecisionDetails.aspx?ID=1765

Decision Maker:

Outcome: Recommendations Approved

Is Key Decision?: No

Is Callable In?: No

Purpose:

Content: The Committee was presented with the annual ombudsman’s letter and an anonymised summary of cases to meet the Council’s statutory duty under the Local Govt and Housing Act.   The report included the Ombudsman’s data and where possible crossmatched with the Council’s own records.   Officers reported that the Ombudsman had dealt with 11 cases during the year, 6 of which were investigated and closed, four cases that were either not for them or were not ready to be considered, and one case that was upheld.  This compared with 8 cases recorded in the previous year.  Members recalled that this was a Housing received last year but the outcome was not received until May this year, so the Ombudsman counted it in the 2025/26 data.   At the same time as receiving the annual letter, the Ombudsman had sent a spreadsheet which contained 14 referrals, 7 of which Officers were aware and pleased to report that none were upheld.   Officers explained that the number of cases on the Ombudsman’s website and the spreadsheet differed because not all cases were formally notified to the Council.  There were three cases the Ombudsman had resolved without needing to check anything with the Council, and none were upheld.   Officers confirmed that they were awaiting the outcome of another Housing case which had been with the Ombudsman since December last year.   Members reviewed comparative data with the other Surrey authorities followed by a series of service improvements from a selection of authorities in Surrey.  The Committee found this information useful to share learning and promote improvements.   Following the issue of the annual letter, the Ombudsman then wrote to those public authorities where they had particular concerns about their complaint handling or wanted to highlight exceptional practice.  Members were pleased to learn that Runnymede was not amongst those authorities.   Officers further confirmed that Runnymede had not been the subject of any public interest reports giving the authority a clean bill of health for the 13th year since the Ombudsman started doing these reports which publicises where an authority had handled a case very badly and the Ombudsman felt it was is in the public interest for everyone to know about it and learn from it.   At the time of writing the report Officers had not yet received the Ombudsman’s full annual report.  However, it had that day been published, and a link to it was sent to the Chair and Vice-Chair of the Committee.    Officers summarised the report, which gave details of  trends and common issues that had arisen during the year by complaint and authority type.  The Ombudsman reported that nationally the number of complaints they received had risen sharply by 33%, and was consistent across all areas.   The number of cases relating to benefits and council tax grew by 67%, followed by Housing at 46%. The lowest increase was in Planning at 9%.   Officers drew the Committee’s attention to narrative in the report where the Ombudsman welcomed local government re-organisation, stating that ‘Devolution is a once in a generation chance to fix public services and local leaders must not waste it’.    In preparation for LGR Officers had recently completed a data sheet for the Customer Services workstream which included complaints and the Ombudsman.   Officers considered that Runnymede’s systems, policies and procedures reflected good practice which it was hoped would be adopted going forward into West Surrey, being compliant with the Ombudsman’s complaint handling code.   Officers were thanked for their report which was duly noted.

Date of Decision: July 15, 2026