Dudley Council to cut wait times for responses to complaints under new regulations

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) has issued new rules for all councils in England which will come into force in April 2026.

A meeting of Dudley Council’s cabinet on December 10 will be asked to approve a revised complaints policy to incorporate the new code.

The policy will reduce the required response time for complaints from 20 to ten days, the council will also have to publish an analysis of how it handles complaints and what it has learned from complaints.

Another feature of the new policy will be allowing the authority to reclassify complaints as ‘service requests’.

A report for the cabinet meeting said: “Where a complaint is received and it is the first the council knows about an issue, the new policy allows such matters to be dealt with as a service request.

“Once the complainant has been contacted and updated, they are able to pursue a formal complaint.”

Under the new complaints procedure a complaint should be investigated and responded to within ten days and if a second stage is needed to resolve the issue, a response time of 20 days is allowed for the second stage.

The report identifies possible risks to the council with the introduction of the new policy including low staff levels.

The report said: “Reduced resources across the council may impact the ability to meet the overall ten day target.

“If this is not met, there is a risk that the Ombudsman will publish findings of failure and increase compensation/expected remedies on individual cases where the council is found to be both at fault and not meeting the target.”

Currently 80 percent of complaints are handled by the council within 20 days while just 50 percent meet a ten day response time.