Jim Martin, the Ombudsman, publishes his annual complaints report for 2013/14 about the local government sector today.

There was a 16% rise in complaints about council services compared with the previous year. The top subjects complained about were housing, planning and social work. The Ombudsman highlights his concern about the pace of reform of social work complaints procedures and the lack of clarity over complaints pathways under health and social care integration.

All of Scotland’s 32 councils now use the same accessible, simple, user-focused complaints handling procedures. These ensure consistency and create opportunities for learning and improving council services, as well as for benchmarking and improving the quality of councils’ complaints handling.

The report is available to read online (link is external), or you can download it in PDF format (740KB).

Further information

Our information page for staff working in the local government sector has been updated.

More information about the model complaints handling procedures is available on the Complaints Standards Authority website, Valuing Complaints (link is external).