Richmond Council closed 568 complaints in 2025/26, up 61%, and housing complaints tripled. The ombudsman upheld seven of the eight cases it investigated.
Richmond Council dealt with 568 formal complaints in 2025/26, up 61% on 352 the year before. Complaints about housing more than tripled.
The figures are in the council’s annual complaints report. It goes to the Finance, Policy and Resources Committee on Thursday 19 November.
The share answered on time fell from 75% to 67%. The report puts the rise partly down to higher demand and service pressures. It also says the council is getting better at treating problems as formal complaints rather than service requests.
Where the complaints came from
The full report breaks the total down by department. These are the biggest:
| Department | 2024/25 | 2025/26 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Children’s Services (corporate and statutory) | 104 | 144 | up 38% |
| Finance | 85 | 141 | up 66% |
| Housing and Regeneration | 31 | 95 | up 206% |
| Environment and Community Services | 66 | 93 | up 41% |
| Adult Social Care (statutory) | 32 | 50 | up 56% |
Finance handles council tax, benefits and billing. Complaints about financial charges and billing rose from 8 to 37 across the council.
Environment complaints are still well below 2022/23, when there were 185.
What people complained about
“Service delay or failure” was the most common complaint, as in past years. It was raised in about three in five complaints, the report says. Staff error or attitude, and poor or incorrect information, came next.
Of all 568 complaints:
- 260 (46%) were not upheld
- 181 (32%) were partly upheld
- 127 (22%) were upheld
The report sets that against the council’s wider workload. Customer services handled 119,271 phone calls, 43,396 emails and 2,705 webchats in the year.
What the ombudsman found
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman looked at 56 Richmond cases, plus six carried over from 2024/25. It investigated eight in detail and found against the council in seven.
That 88% rate matches the average for similar councils. But Richmond had eight investigations against an average of 21 for its statistical neighbours. The report puts upheld decisions at 3.6 per 100,000 residents, against 10.2 for similar councils. There were no public reports, and the council carried out every remedy the ombudsman asked for.
The upheld cases, as listed in the report’s appendix, included:
- a family left without interim accommodation when they became homeless: an apology and £1,500, plus hotel costs
- a child who missed out on special educational provision and alternative education while absent from school: an apology and £6,805.89
- another child whose school absence was not properly considered for alternative provision: an apology and £400
- council tax reductions and a single person discount wrongly refused, and a summons wrongly issued: £250
- a delay in taking action against a private landlord over disrepair: an apology, £400 and a review of procedures
- aftercare housing costs under section 117 of the Mental Health Act that the council should have paid from the start: an apology, £250 and repayment of the costs
What it means for you
If you have a complaint, the council’s process has two stages. The council aims to answer a first-stage complaint within 10 working days of acknowledging it, and a review within 20 working days. If you are still unhappy after that, you can go to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, which is free.
The committee papers and a webcast link are on the meeting page.
Sources
- Richmond Corporate Complaints Report 2025-26, report to the Finance, Policy and Resources Committee, 19 November 2026
- Appendix 1, full complaints report, for the department figures, complaint types and contact volumes
- Appendix 3, upheld ombudsman cases
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