Earlier this month we launched our annual review of Adult Social Care complaints, which collated data from every complaint we received over the past 12 months about both independent and council-funded care.

In the review, we called for complaints to be placed at the heart of any reform of adult social care in England, and for greater accountability in the sector, with complaints and complaint-handling playing a central role in helping people raise concerns when things go wrong and supporting effective oversight of the sector through improved data and intelligence.

The past year has seen our adult care caseload rise by eight per cent, including a significant 28 per cent increase in complaints about charging for care services.

However this increase has not been seen across the board, and we are still seeing relatively few complaints from people who fund their own care. People who arrange their own care make up an estimated 23% of all care users, yet the number of complaints we received from this group remains disproportionately low.

Other interesting statistics from the report include:

• we upheld nearly eight out of 10 complaints (79 per cent) investigated about adult care
• the largest area of our work focused on assessment and care planning, followed by charging for care
• the area with the highest uphold rate in the period was residential care (83 per cent of 149 investigations upheld) followed by charging (81 per cent of 229 investigations).

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We have written to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Right Honourable Steve Reed MP OBE highlighting our concerns about Leicester City Council.

The council has objected to being held accountable after failing to provide a homeless family with suitable accommodation.

The Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) can step in when the government has concerns about how a local authority is run. It uses information from our investigations alongside other information to understand how each local authority in England is performing.

The original report, published in October last year, detailed how a woman and her children escaped domestic abuse and asked Leicester City Council for help with housing.

We upheld the family’s complaint and recommended the council pay a financial remedy to the family and improve its services. The council agreed to make some changes but refused to pay most of the financial remedy.

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