Casework contact

We store name, job title and contact details for nominated link officers, Chief Executives (or their equivalents) in our casework management systems to allow us to communicate effectively with organisations we investigate. We rely on individual organisations to tell us when these should be changed. We do not keep a record of previous post holders.

We will primarily use link officer and Chief Executive contact details to correspond with organisations about complaints. However, we will also use this information to write to organisations with important updates about the Ombudsman’s work or to seek feedback either directly or through the Ombudsman Link newsletter.

Where an organisation is replaced or merged with another organisation we will retain contact details for the link officer and Chief Executive for a suitable period to allow us to deal with any cases we have in hand.

We may gather names, contact details and job titles for individual officers or staff as part of our casework. We would not routinely share these with complainants unless the complainant already had this information as part of their interactions with the organisation. This information is retained on our systems for 12 months following the closure of the complaint.

Non-casework contact

We correspond with organisations we investigate about non-casework matters. This may be to provide advice on good complaint handling, to tackle systemic issues we have identified across a number of complaints or provide details of our Annual Letter.

To support this we maintain records of key officers and members which are reviewed on a regular basis. This may include details of:

• Council leaders
• Scrutiny chairs
• Chief Executives or equivalent
• Directors and Heads of Service
• Monitoring Officers

We obtain this information through third parties as it is already in the public domain. However, it is important that organisations inform us immediately about any changes to Chief Executive or Link Officer to avoid any delays in dealing with our casework correspondence.  

We do not routinely retain copies of one-off non-casework correspondence with organisations. We will note any key relevant contact and retain this for at least a calendar year. We will note the name of the organisation but not the name or contact details of the person we spoke to. In rare cases, where we determine we need to retain a copy of correspondence, we will do so but the name and contact details of the officer will be redacted.

Where we have ongoing non-casework contact with an organisation, for example to provide advice and support to help improve its performance we may retain key correspondence for a suitable period to allow us to monitor any improvements the organisation has made. .

You can find our privacy notice for training, webinar and live events attendees here: Privacy - Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman