Out of the 59 complaints received last year by the Local Government Ombudsman, they made no findings of maladministration against the Isle of Wight Council.

It is the fourth year running the ombudsman has not upheld a complaint made against the authority.

Figures released in the Local Government Ombudsman’s annual report show a total of 59 complaints were made against the council – up marginally on the previous year’s figure of 57.

Of these, seven were dealt with by way of local settlement with a total of £12,600 being paid to complainants while ten were considered premature and passed back for investigation under the council’s own complaints procedures. Eight were outside the jurisdiction of the ombudsman and 12 were not pursued for other reasons.

The LGO has recently announced that, from April 2009, only complaints that have been through all stages of a council’s complaints procedure will be accepted.

“There will of course be exceptions and the ombudsman is considering very carefully what these might be.  The IW Council welcomes what will be a greater opportunity to resolve complaints themselves locally.  For its own part,  the council is planning a review of its complaints procedure with the aim of making it easier and speedier for the public

The annual report also noted the council had reduced the average time taken to supply information to the ombudsman from 34.2 days to 33.1 although the ombudsman said further improvement was necessary.

IW Council leader Cllr David Pugh said:

“It is pleasing that the ombudsman issued no reports against us, but we must continue to strive to improve services and, in particular, the time we take to respond to ombudsman investigations.

“Already we have invested significantly in areas of service that generate a significant proportion of complaints and work is under way to identify and tackle features of complaints, in particular how we can ensure that we identify and respond in a timely manner to complaints. 

What is most important is that we can demonstrate that we are learning from complaints and using that learning to improve services.”

A full copy of the report is available on the LGO website www.lgo.org.uk and details of the IW Council complaints procedure can be found on http://www.iwight.com/home/complaints.asp or by contacting the Customer Support Team at County Hall (01983 823092).