It has now been two months since I started as Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman and I have spent that time listening, reading and absorbing all the information that my new colleagues, and those we work with at other organisations, have so generously provided. The time has flown by, and I have been struck both by how willing people are to share their knowledge and by their commitment to improving the public services that we all rely on. The passion for what we do, and why we do it, is infectious.

My career in the legal profession has been a bedrock for dealing with cases of injustice and whilst much of the subject matter is new, the poor experiences that people can go through are sadly not. Looking at the breadth of complaints that come to the Ombudsman, there is no doubt the local government and social care sectors, which we oversee, are experiencing significant challenge. It is no exaggeration to say that in some areas, like support for children with special educational needs and disabilities, the system is in crisis. Whilst there are no easy fixes, in these circumstances it is important to put people at the heart of every service and to get the basics right. While we understand the difficult environment that organisations are operating in, we must – and will without fear – continue to hold them to account when things go wrong.

The Ombudsman is an efficient and high performing organisation but experiences many of the same challenges as the sectors we oversee. We do not have the resources to meet the increasing demand that is coming our way. Like many public sector organisations, we know what we could achieve, and what we would like to do to address more of the systemic issues we see, but we are limited and, as such, focus on making the best impact we can with the resources we have.

I will work to put us on a firmer, more sustainable financial footing, to increase our national impact and to ensure that we are having real influence on the sectors we oversee through the implementation of initiatives like our Complaint Handling Code for local government. Despite the challenges there are real opportunities to improve public services to the benefit of people across the country. I take on the role of Ombudsman with real enthusiasm and determination to make a difference, for maximum impact and real improvement for local people in their everyday lives.

We are always striving to make our services more accessible to people with different needs, and have worked with a specialist service to create a new help video for people who use British Sign Language (BSL).

This video takes people through questions about:

• Who we are
• What sort of complaints we can look at
• When to complain
• What happens if we can investigate
• What happens if we find an organisation at fault
• How to get in touch

The video complements the InterpretersLive! service we already provide for BSL users once they are in a position to make a complaint. This service puts people in touch with our advisers and investigators and interpreters via an app that can be downloaded from both Google Play and Apple's App Store to mobile phones.

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A Worcestershire care home has not shown us it has complied with our recommendations following an earlier investigation.

We've now issued an Adverse Findings Notice against the company, Wayside Care Ltd, that operates the Wayside Nursing Home in Bromsgrove, after it charged a family for 28 days’ care after their father passed away. This is despite the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA)’s guidelines stating families should only be charged up to three days.

Following our 2023 investigation, we asked the care home to refund the father’s estate the extra days charged. We also asked that the company review its contract to ensure it is in line with CMA guidance.

The care provider agreed to our recommendations, however it has failed to provide evidence it has done so, despite our chasing for the information.

We've passed our findings on to the Care Quality Commission, which regulates care settings.

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We deliver training in effective complaint handling to local authorities and care providers. This is to help improve the standard of complaint handling locally so that people have their complaints resolved properly without having to come to the Ombudsman.

This year we've delivered 135 courses to care providers and authorities in England. Delegates reported high levels of satisfaction with our training and an increase in confidence in dealing with complaints.

Our training focusses on understanding:

• the complainant’s experience of the complaints process;
• how to carry out an effective investigation;
• remedying complaints and providing a genuine apology;
• writing good decision letters; and
• learning from complaints.

More details of the courses we offer can be found on our website.

On 2 May, there will be elections in 107 English local authorities, as well as numerous mayoral elections.

Our investigations are totally independent of central and local government. But like councils and other organisations providing a public service, we must ensure that our work does not interfere with local democracy.

We have now entered the pre-election period of sensitivity that starts around six weeks before an election. It means publicly-funded organisations must be cautious about carrying out activities that could be seen to influence the outcome of an election. It is particularly relevant to communications, but does not mean business stops altogether.

For us, all our casework continues as normal. We don’t halt any investigations. Because they are part and parcel of everyday work, we will continue to make decisions during the period, publish them on our website, and issue email alerts to subscribers to the new content.

However, we will not publish public interest reports singling out individual councils that are holding elections. These are reserved for the cases with the most serious failures, with which we would ordinarily accompany a media campaign to draw public attention to the findings.