 The last few months has seen us focus on our role in improving public services both at a local and a national level. Sharing our learning to bring about improvement is something we are required to do by law – it is stated in the 1974 Local Government Act – alongside our work to provide support to individuals when things go wrong. We issued a report about services provided for children with special educational needs and disabilities by Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council at the end of February. In the report, while examining an individual case brought to us, we uncovered that nearly 60% of children on the council's books had waited more than eight months for decisions on their Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan reviews, significantly longer than they should have done. In Rochdale we found even higher numbers, where the council disclosed to us that it had a backlog of nearly 1,500 EHC Plan reviews to make decisions on. In a previous investigation it had told us it was taking steps to address this, but the two-year period we looked at showed that cases were actually on the increase. As a result of our report the council agreed to produce an action plan for improvements. Alongside this we have issued a range of guides for councils on applying our Complaint Handling Code. We have worked hard to ensure these are practical, useful and clear, and collectively they give local authorities the tools they need to manage complaints in line with best practice. Whilst some councils already handle complaints in line with our Code, not all do and as such we are giving them the next 12 months to get their systems in order. We will begin to assess compliance with the Code in our investigations from April 2026, and later this year will be producing information for the public about how you can expect the Code to work in your local area. Social care is obviously a huge part of our work and we have recently produced detailed and specific guidance on how local authorities should manage complaints about social care. We've also produced a video for independent care providers which you might find useful if you or a relative are using social care services that you pay for. 2025 is already proving to be one of our busiest years and there is no reason to think that will slow down. We continue to strive to provide the best possible service whilst managing the thousands of complaints that come to us every month. | 
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