Over half of the investigations into complaints against local authorities were upheld in 2017-18, according to new figures.

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman’s annual report shows a total of 31,664 complaints and enquiries from the public over the past year.

Of the 18,882 cases it decided, 5,031 were dealt with at the assessment stage, and 4,331 through a detailed investigation.

The Ombudsman upheld 57% of detailed investigations, which is up from 53% the previous year.

It also made 730 recommendations to improve services for the wider public, almost a fifth more than the year before.

‘Our recommendations for service improvement are helping local authorities unlock the power of our investigations, to improve the lives of many people who haven’t directly complained to us,’ LGO Michael King said.

‘I welcome where councils and care providers have worked constructively with us to remedy injustices and take on board the learning from our cases.

‘Last year we put considerable effort into changing our processes to give more sophisticated information about the impact of our recommendations.

‘In future, I hope this will help councils increasingly to capitalise on the added value complaints can bring.’