£12.5m of taxpayer funding used to bankroll administrative avoidance
The LGSCO’s latest Annual Report reveals they are funded by a £12.5 million grant from the public purse, with £10.95 million spent on staffing. Despite their own accounts stating that each case costs the taxpayer an average of £887, my experience suggests this money is being wasted on a "reject-by-default" culture. I raised a specific, nuanced query regarding the Council’s corporate accounting methodology and transparency—a clear matter of local government administration. Instead of a reasoned legal determination, I was met with three successive template responses. When I challenged this, Intake Team Manager Andrew Grice issued a "final" refusal to correspond further, effectively deadlocking the case without ever addressing the point of law raised. It is a disgrace that a public body, costing nearly £900 per case, uses its resources to insulate itself from accountability rather than investigating systemic maladministration. They are failing their statutory duty under the Local Government Act 1974 while hiding behind a "finality" clause to silence legitimate grievances. I am now escalating this service failure to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO). Taxpayers deserve an ombudsman that investigates, not one that manages its backlog by issuing formulaic rejections.