Complying with our recommendations

If we make a finding of fault causing injustice, the Ombudsman will recommend the Council takes steps to put things right for the person (or people) affected. We might also recommend actions to improve services, to help prevent the fault from occurring again. You can find more information about our approach to remedies and service improvements here.

After we issue our final decision, we expect councils to provide evidence of compliance with our recommendations within the agreed timeframe. We actively monitor compliance with our recommendations, and write to councils to let them know once we are satisfied the agreed actions have been fully implemented.

A council or authority should tell us when it has implemented our recommended remedy. If we do not receive information about a remedy, we will follow it up to ensure it has been implemented. Once we have issued our final decision we can only change the deadline for compliance with our recommendations in exceptional circumstances. If action is taken after the deadline has passed it will be recorded as late. Therefore it is important for organisations to provide feedback on timescales for taking recommended actions when a draft decision is issued.

If we consider a council has not provided satisfactory evidence of compliance, or reasonable attempts to carry out the agreed actions, we might open a new investigation, with a view to issuing a public report against the council for non-compliance.

The process for responding to recommendations in public reports is different and is explained fully here.

There is more information on this in our Compliance Manual.

Financial remedies

Some authorities have stopped making financial remedy and other payments by cheque. Some complainants may be reluctant to provide their banking details for a BACS payment or may not have a bank account.  Authorities need to ensure there are suitable alternative payment methods in place to address this issue.

It is not usually necessary to obtain proof of a bank account before making a payment. If you have concerns about any payments you should speak to the investigator before imposing any restrictions or requirements on the payment.

Some remedies may require sign off by elected officials or senior officers. Organisations should ensure that approval can be given promptly to ensure agreed timescales can be met. For example, some councils have given officers delegated authority to agree and pay remedies of up to a specified amount to avoid delays. Higher amounts are then subject to approval from elected officials.

We usually expect financial remedies to be paid within 4 to 6 weeks of a final decision being issued. Therefore, it is important that councils and authorities have processes in place to ensure payments can be approved within these timescales. It is important you let us know how long this might take when responding to our draft decision or report. This will allow us to consider whether proposed timescales are reasonable and we can then reflect this in our final recommendations.