LG & SC Ombudsman Reviews 

★☆☆☆☆ — Five caseworkers, five missed deadlines, zero accountability

My complaint (ref: 26 007 076) against Milton Keynes Council has been at Stage 2 since 13 April 2026. The Council has not responded in over seven months. In that time, the LGSCO has passed my case between five different members of staff — Ms Durkin, Rebecca Cudmore, Pam Purewal, Hasan Bhayat, and Andrew Grice — none of whom engaged with the evidence on file or acknowledged the pattern of Council non-compliance.

The Council was given five separate deadlines to respond. All five were missed. Each time I returned to the LGSCO, a new caseworker granted the Council another 20-day extension without question. Rebecca Cudmore sent me the identical template message twice, word for word, months apart — confirming the case was not being read.

The Ombudsman's own Complaint Handling Code states 16 weeks is the maximum for a complaints process. I am at 30 weeks. Not one caseworker has applied the rule. Not one has explained why.

I submitted the Council's own FOI data showing 129 parking tickets issued at a site it admitted was non-compliant, a 100% cancellation rate on every ticket challenged, and £4,315 collected from motorists who didn't challenge. That evidence has been on the LGSCO's file since August 2026. No caseworker has referenced it.

I filed a formal service complaint on 8 October 2026 about the LGSCO's handling. It remains unanswered past the LGSCO's own 20-working-day deadline.

Andrew Grice, Intake Team Manager, also confirmed in writing that my complaint "will appear as closed" while they make enquiries — meaning the months of delay are not reflected in the LGSCO's published performance statistics.

This office does not hold councils to account. It facilitates their non-compliance by granting endless extensions while cycling cases through staff who do not read the files.

responding to hoax caller to my house, refusing to hear what I had to say, that there was no fire, alleging they were told it was a 'bonfire' then 3 two male one female pushing past me to go in, big boy bully tactics used, finding out that I had told them the truth, having no face to respond to me, the woman picking up a saucepan to pour over a few embers as I had been cleaning and carefully disposing of my dried twigs etc. Now LGSCO turning a blind eye to my complaint and refusing to investigate. Disgraceful government body, waste of taxpayers money

Discriminated against disabled person with mental health, lied on information and did not investigate. One call and then closed case stating council were ok to carrying on discrimination and maladministration.

I am extremely disappointed with the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman. After almost two years of fighting to resolve a serious noise problem affecting my home, the Ombudsman found maladministration by my local council, yet my situation remains unresolved.
I spent countless hours gathering evidence and pursuing complaints, only to be left without any meaningful protection or practical solution.
Ombudsman is total time waster!
I wish I had read these reviews before approaching Ombudsman. It would have saved me a great deal of time, stress and disappointment!
No wonder councils do whatever they want.

I’m in a high risk situation, been band a housing for a year, crisis situation for 3 months and social care and housing won’t help, social care trying to pass the buck to CMHT for a housing issue. And LGSCO won’t allow me to escalate prior to 16 weeks compliant. I could be unalive in that time! The council have failed to answer my complaint in 5 weeks and failed to answer the MPs office for 4 weeks. And you just allow them to do it. So what is the point in your organisation. The council are allowed to do whatever they want.

Dreadful experience. Complete waste of time, stressful and extreme waste of time. They may as well have said "computer says no" at the very start. Maybe save a few taxpayer's pennies and shut them down along with the Blue Badge department. It's a box ticking exercise. Get a BOT in to do it.

Surely their job is to enable people to live their lives with the smallest amount of help so that they can continue to contribute to society.

Unable now to walk to work. Unable to park my car at work. Now had to shut my small independent shop. All I needed was a little bit of help. Not a lot to ask. Been working since I was 16, now 71 - still working (or was) because my pension got stolen, £50k and counting, and now had to stop working for the sake of a parking spot. Beggars belief right?

Yet another shop off the high street. This is what it's all about Mr Burnham not the M&S's and John Lewis's of the world, but the small independents trying to keep it together not just for themselves but for the community they live in as well.

Burnham, parking spot is all I needed. This is the reality of Britain today.

Absolute corrupt and Alana Sherif is disgrace.

If you want to catch this Ombudsman out, ask the so-called 'investigator' that decided on your case to send you all the documents he/she considered before making his/her decision. In my case, I found they didn't even look at the respective local authority's decision letter, which was the decision I was complaining of, amongst other relevant documents.

Public bodies should consider all relevant material, and make all relevant considerations, when making decisions in accordance with public law principles. This travesty of an Ombudsman just goes through the motions of rubber-stamping local authority's decisions without even reading them, whilst falsely purporting to be impartial.

I have also found that the people working for this rotten organisation act like juvenile delinquents with delusions of grandeur, thinking they can decide on whether or not a local authority acted unlawfully, when only a court can do so.

In my honest opinion, if there was any justice in this world, various people that work for this Ombudsman should be prosecuted for misconduct in public office.

We sought help from the Ombudsman as the council will not respond to stage 1 or stage 2 complaint.

The ombudsman have thrown the case out as I can't "provide evidence of the lack of response".

Just think about that for a second.

How am I supposed to prove I DO NOT HAVE a response? I've queried this, and receive a statement back "without evidence of no response we'd advise you to contact the council".

Fantastic service. Gee - thanks.

Shows the corruption going on here.

I found the service neither impartial nor independent. From the outset, it felt as though my evidence had not been properly considered. The final decision largely repeated what the Council had said, while very little of what I had submitted was reflected.
The HPM was at fault but these people refused to even acknowledge this even supplied emails supporting document you name it i supplied it.
I provided evidence, including emails, which I believe directly supported my concerns.Hospital consultant and GP'S supporting evidence. Despite this, nothing was changed between the draft and final decision. This makes me question the purpose of asking complainants to comment on a draft decision if those comments and supporting evidence are not genuinely considered.
I am also extremely concerned that the Investigator's Manual does not appear to have been followed. In particular, I do not feel that the evidence relating to my severe respiratory problems, mental health and disability discrimination under the Equality Act 2010 was properly examined.
Investigators dealing with complaints involving disability and mental health should have an appropriate understanding of how serious these issues can be and how stressful the complaints process is for people who are already struggling.
The whole experience left me feeling that the process was biased in favour of the authority rather than being a genuinely independent investigation. When someone goes to an ombudsman, they do so because they believe an injustice has occurred and they need an independent body to properly examine the evidence. They should not be left feeling that their evidence has simply been disregarded.
A truly independent service should listen to both sides, consider all relevant evidence, follow its own procedures and give proper reasons for its conclusions. I did not experience that here.
This has been an extremely stressful and upsetting experience, and I feel that my concerns were not properly heard or investigated. awful service waste of time.

I am writing this review based on not only my past experiences in dealing with the LGSCO but also reading through the vast amounts of negative feedback given by members of the public on the effectiveness of the ombudsman.
Let’s be clear here the ombudsman do not do their job properly. They close ranks on councils and do not look into public concerns in a thorough and professional manner.
I understand, they have limited resources and funding to look into all complaints but this is just an excuse. In fact it is their main excuse.
The real problems lies above them. There is an institutionalised culture of corruption and negligence that exists, that allows councils the freedom to act in in an unlawful manner. The legal system is also broken.
When a council breaches so many rules ( laws) and protects bodies that they are a management agreement with, you come to realise very quickly that rules do not apply.
My own advice to anyone wanting a fair review of their concerns is don’t go through the LGSCO.
Go above them, to your local MP or even higher.
The reason I say this is that often your local MP is also implicated in this corrupt and dangerous structure of governance.

If you expect the system is set up to benefit and protect the public, think again.

Terrible useless service, they mark their own homework and when you try to get a service complaint they shut it down without considering it, which is outrageous, to protect themselves from their failings. There were procedurals errors in my complaint response but they don't care. Waste of time and energy and they should be defunded.

Refusing to investigate my complaint against council over education issues, totally a waste of time.

Just checked previous reviews that the LGO Ombudsman and local authorities share the same solicitors firm which is Bevan Brittan - it's true which makes all the reviews here correct - there is no objective LGO Ombudsman and they need to be investigated. Also check out each individual LGO so called Advisor and see that they work for the government in some way. It's all Totally biased in favour of the local authority. Give the council all the time in the world to respond, whilst what feels like threatening deadlines to the us as taxpayers that pay for them to investigate. My impression is that they don't even bother to read the proof that is sent by us as the public and already have predetermined responses to complaints and side with the council even when the council do not provide any evidence from their side. Horrible experience and do not trust what is supposed to be objective.

UPDATE: Just put the LGO Ombuds draft response through an AI checker = 73% it's an AI response - no wonder it has so many contradictions and replies that don't make sense and references to do with things that don't exist. I am not sure whether to name the so called "Investigator" yet but this is deeply concerning. I wish there was there was a forum where we could take this further and to the government as I can see there is bias against us people.

My experience of the LGSCO has seriously undermined my confidence in its ability to hold public bodies accountable.

The Ombudsman accepted that provision specified in my child’s EHCP was not delivered. My child’s difficulties escalated, he was repeatedly suspended for behaviour associated with unmet SEND needs, and ultimately there was a significant breakdown in his ability to access education.

Yet the Local Authority was found not to be at fault because it “reasonably believed” the provision was being delivered.

On what evidence was that belief reasonable?

The Local Authority has been unable to produce a meaningful audit trail showing that it monitored delivery: no evidence of systematic checks, verification of Section F provision, or meaningful challenge when a child with an EHCP was repeatedly being suspended and his education was visibly deteriorating.

A statutory duty to secure provision cannot sensibly mean simply believing somebody else is delivering it without checking.

I was also deeply concerned by the evidential approach taken. Assertions from the school appeared to be accepted despite evidence I supplied challenging them. Most concerningly, material relating to a safeguarding concern/outcome has been withheld from me, leaving me unable to scrutinise potentially relevant evidence while conclusions have nevertheless been reached about what occurred.

The contradiction is stark: the provision was legally required; it was not delivered; the Local Authority was responsible for securing it; there is no meaningful evidence it monitored delivery; the warning signs included repeated suspensions and escalating difficulties — yet the authority was not at fault.

If that amounts to sufficient oversight of a statutory duty, it is difficult to understand what meaningful protection that duty provides.

My child was failed. The failure is acknowledged. Yet somehow nobody responsible for ensuring the provision was delivered is accountable for it.

For an organisation intended to provide independent scrutiny and administrative justice, I find that outcome profoundly concerning.

Raised concerns with the Ombudsman about my local council who had made it impossible for me to use swimming facilities across 2 sites due to their frequent (alleged) breaches of their own public sector equality duty to disabled patrons.

One complaint to the council elicited an apology for consistently doing something which they should not have been doing and this made swimming inaccessible for me.

I raised concerns with the Ombudsman who took nearly a full year to investigate, found fault (not all faults though as there were clearly others) and then asked the council to apologise.

I already got an apology from the council off my own back and decided it was nowhere near enough - which is why I went to the Ombudsman.

So, the Ombudsman took nearly a year, heaven knows how many paid hours by a staff member to investigate and for what?

To ask the council to say sorry.

The Ombudsman service requires immediate closure as it provides no redress for people who complain and who have their complaints upheld.

What a colossal waste of taxpayers money and time.

Submitted a complaint following instructions of West Mercia Police. LGO sent it back to the Council, samew officer dealt with it after 6 months. Did not answer the complaint after 7 months. It is forwarded for allocation and within 48 HRS without any review of altered documents, switched documents and concealed versions with multiple diffent copies the LGO states it has been submitted too late. A total waste of 9 months. All to protect a Corrupt Counrt Council.

A fake ombudsman designed to bury the maladministration and incompetence of local government.
They pose as being independent and impartial. In reality they specialize in the perversion justice.
Even by the low moral standards of British public life this organisation is a shocker. A bunch of social deviants.

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) is a completely toothless organization that serves as little more than a shield for negligent local authorities.

Instead of conducting independent, thorough investigations into administrative fault, their investigators routinely look for the quickest legal loophole—usually Section 26(6)(a)—to dismiss complaints at the assessment stage without reading the evidence.

They consistently fail to distinguish between substantive legal decisions (which belong with tribunals) and severe administrative fault (such as councils refusing to update correspondence addresses, failing to manage records, or continuing aggressive enforcement while formal disputes are pending). The LGSCO treats these distinct administrative failings as an "overlap" with tribunal jurisdiction, effectively granting local councils complete immunity for atrocious customer service and procedural abuse.

When you point out clear material factual misunderstandings, investigators simply reissue the exact same generic refusal template without addressing a single argument raised

So it appears the LGSCO are perfectly ok with LA's not handling a complaint under the statutory Children's Act complaint and wait 6 months to tell you this. It gets handled under the Corporate complaints procedure with no independent scrutiny. LGSCO- we are not investigating therefore case closed. 3,012 complaints received about Children's Services and only 345 investigated. Listen to what parents are saying LGSCO- where is the accountability?