Cumberland Council’s Standards and Governance Committee met on Tuesday 6 October 2026 in the Council Chamber at Allerdale House in Workington. It was a short agenda, but two useful items: the Local Government Ombudsman’s annual look at complaints about the Council, and a new protocol setting out the role of the Council’s Independent Person on standards complaints.
Complaints to the Ombudsman
Each year the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman publishes figures on the complaints it has dealt with about every council. The report to the Committee, from the Chief Legal Officer and Monitoring Officer, set out Cumberland’s figures for 2025-26.
In total the Ombudsman dealt with 69 complaints about the Council:
- 30 were not for the Ombudsman to deal with
- 26 were assessed and closed
- 13 were investigated, of which 12 were upheld and 1 was not
Of the 12 upheld complaints, 6 related to children and family wellbeing (5 of them about education), 4 to adult social care and housing, 1 to benefits and tax, and 1 to waste management. The Council complied with the Ombudsman’s recommendations in every case – a 100% compliance rate.
The number of complaints the Ombudsman received about Cumberland fell from 86 in 2024-25 to 77 in 2025-26. That is worth noting against the national picture: the Ombudsman’s own annual report says it received 27,625 complaints in 2025-26, a 33% rise on the previous year and the steepest increase in a decade. The largest numbers about Cumberland related to education and children’s services (22), environmental services, public protection and regulation (18), and adult social care (12).
The report also gave the Council’s own internal complaints figures for 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026. There were 1,821 in total, including 1,481 corporate complaints at Stage 1 and 234 escalated to Stage 2, 69 children’s services complaints and 37 adult services complaints.
So far this year, from 1 April to 31 July 2026, the Ombudsman has upheld one complaint against the Council.
The Committee was asked to note the report and to keep receiving six-monthly updates on cases where the Ombudsman finds the Council at fault, including the outcomes and the lessons learned. [CHECK: outcome / any discussion]
The Independent Person Protocol
Under the Localism Act 2011, the Council appoints an Independent Person whose views are sought on complaints that a councillor has breached the Code of Conduct. The Monitoring Officer brought forward a new protocol setting out how that role works in practice.
The protocol makes clear that the Independent Person is an independent statutory officeholder – not a councillor, an officer or a decision-maker – and that their job is not to investigate, gather evidence or act as an advocate. It covers:
- when the Independent Person must be consulted, including before any decision to start a formal investigation
- how they are involved at each stage of the complaints process
- how a councillor who is the subject of a complaint can ask for their views
- confidentiality and conflicts of interest
- training and support
The guiding principles are proportionality, fairness, transparency, respect for the Independent Person’s independence, and timely decisions. The Committee was asked to approve the protocol, to note that it is practical guidance rather than part of the Constitution, and to allow the Monitoring Officer to make minor updates in future after consulting the Independent Person. [CHECK: was the protocol approved?]
The full papers for the meeting are available here: Standards and Governance Committee, 6 October 2026.
As ever, if you have any questions about any of this, or there is anything I can help with, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Constitution Working Group
The meeting continued as the Constitution Working Group, which considered a number of changes, hopefully improvements, on the way the Council operates. This included:
- Process for questions and answers at Council meetings
- Petitions from members of the public
- Planning committee procedures
All agreed changes will now be considered by a full meeting of the Council.
Leave a Reply