Liverpool Council had to make payments to settle more than a dozen complaints during the last financial year.
An annual report issued by the Local Government and Social Care has outlined how the local authority managed issues raised by residents from across the city during 2021-22. The document said how complaints and inquiries about Liverpool Council increased by 60% last year, with 114 received.
However, 12 months previous cases fell by 45% to allow local authorities to focus on the coronavirus pandemic. The ombudsman said it made decisions in 112 cases, 25 of which were subjected to a detailed investigation, a decrease of 7%.
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Of those cases, a decision was upheld in 18 - the equivalent of 72%. This is 4% higher than the average across similar authorities.
More than half of the cases upheld were in education and children’s services, with almost a quarter referring to housing. If the Ombudsman finds that there is fault on the part of the council along with “direct injustice” to the complainant, it upholds the complaint.
The report added: “All upheld complaints require a remedy to put the complainant in the position they would have been in had the fault not happened.” It said financial redress had to be made in 15 cases for avoidable distress/time and trouble, repaying a “quantifiable loss” or loss of service.
Apologies were issued on 11 occasions, the report said. It added: “It is important for the Council to reflect on the feedback it receives and to look at what we can learn from it.
“Senior managers have an overview of complaints and are committed to evidence-based learning.” Among the issues highlighted by the ombudsman that the council has dealt with include bins in city parks, whereby officials from the parks and green spaces team had to introduce a labelling system to ensure waste is correctly disposed of.
The council has also simplified its alleygate process to access a key and how to make anonymous complaints about noise issues. When considering how many compliments have been logged by the city council, it was found that the number fell by 24% from 593 to 451 compared to 2020-21.
A Liverpool Council spokesperson said: “We take all complaints extremely seriously and are committed to putting things right when we do not provide the standard of service people rightly expect. Last year we commissioned the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman to undertake an independent, external review of our complaints processes and handling and have set up a working group to implement the recommendations.
"When a complaint is upheld by the Ombudsman, a thorough and detailed review is undertaken to learn lessons and make improvements.”
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