Social Services: Complaints
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what mechanisms exist for oversight of local authority complaints procedures relating to adult social care.
Answered by Alison McGovern
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman investigates complaints from residents, including disabled residents, about maladministration by local authorities and adult social care providers.
The Ombudsman published an updated Complaint Handling Code last year. The Code sets out standards on how to implement fair, effective and transparent complaint handling processes, to ensure that residents’ concerns are properly heard and responded to, and to support councillors in properly scrutinising how their organisation learns from its mistakes to improve service delivery.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) are assessing how local authorities in England are meeting the full range of their duties under Part 1 of the Care Act 2014, including considering complaints procedures as part of its wider evaluation of leadership. The assessments identify local authorities’ strengths and areas for improvement, facilitating the sharing of good practice and helping us to target support where it is most needed. If the CQC identifies a local authority has failed or is failing to discharge its duties under the Care Act to an acceptable standard, the Secretary of State has powers to intervene.
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