In a perfect world councils would get things right every time, but officers are human and errors do occur.  And it is when things go wrong that complaints handling teams have the chance to prove they can make right a wrong – and show their real worth to the councils they represent.

Complaints are also an opportunity to take stock, look at processes to find what went wrong and work out whether the problem is a genuine error or a wider, systemic failing. 

A recent Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) investigation involving a council's complaints handling process has highlighted the importance of councils learning from their mistakes – and keeping their promises.

In this case the LGO has recommended that Derbyshire County Council carry out a root and branch examination of its complaints process to make sure that the complaint we encountered does not happen again.

A woman contacted us after complaints to the county council about its Children's Services department went unanswered in May 2011. And it took the council a further two years after our first communication for them to start to deal with her complaint.

This was despite the fact that the regulations place a statutory duty on councils to take unresolved complaints through an investigation by an investigating officer and an independent person within 25 working days.

When we first contacted the council on the woman's behalf, the council assured us that it would investigate, and the case was closed.  By September 2012 the council still had not carried out a stage two investigation. The woman made a further complaint to us and as a result, the council again committed to undertake a stage two investigation.

By April 2013 the woman contacted us again saying she had not received any communication from the council or the investigating officer. I wrote to the council once again on 25 April 2013 and the woman finally received an acknowledgement of her complaint two days later – some 25 months after it was first registered with the council.

Following my investigation and subsequent report, the council has apologised to the woman and has also been asked to offer the woman £500 in acknowledgement of the distress it had caused.

Of course, had the council handled the complaint effectively from the offset this case would not have come to us.  Certainly the complainant should not have had to return to us on two further occasions. 

All too often councils are criticised for being faceless bureaucracies, but if officers deal with complaints swiftly and effectively from the start they can really capitalise on the opportunity to show people that they can learn from mistakes and make genuine improvements not just for individual but for all those who use their services.