Wirral Council praised for improving ombudsman response times

Aug 27 2008 by Lorna Hughes, Birkenhead News

WIRRAL Council has been praised for improving the time it takes to respond to the Local Government Ombudsman.

The Ombudsman is an independent service, which considers complaints about the administrative actions of councils and other authorities.

In 2006/7 Wirral Council was criticised after taking average of 111 days to respond to Ombudsman enquiries.

Since then, the authority says a lot of work has taken place leading to dramatic improvements.

In 2007/08 the Council took an average of under 27 days to respond, achieving an outstanding reduction of 76 per cent.

Local Government Ombudsman, Anne Seex, said: “I am pleased to place on record the fact that, on average, the Council took 26.8 days to reply to my office.

“This is a significant improvement on recent years and I am grateful to the council for the effort it has clearly made.”

Councillor Simon Holbrook, cabinet member for corporate services said: “I am delighted that our progress has been recognised and value the feedback we have received.

“The Ombudsman’s work plays a major role in maintaining our reputation for fairness and good management and I look forward to further improvements next year.”