Local Government Ombudsman's annual letter 2003/04

In January 2004, the Local Government Ombudsman informed Salford City Council about the results of a pilot exercise that ombudsmen carried out in 2003.

They had sent a letter to a representative sample of local authorities, including this council, spelling out the details of complaints that had been determined during the year and drawing any lessons they thought appropriate in respect of the councils’ performance, their complaints-handling arrangements generally, and how lessons might be fed back into service improvement. The letters also explained an intention to send a similar annual letter to all councils this year.

It was hoped that such communications would:

help individual councils to learn from the outcome of complaints made to the ombudsman
underpin effective working relations between the council and the ombudsman's office
identify opportunities for the ombudsman to provide assistance that a council may wish to seek in bringing about improvements to its internal complaint handling
provide complaint-based information which councils might find useful in assessing and reviewing their performance.