verification / datasets / 09-ombudsman-lgsco / SOURCE.md

Dataset 09 — Housing Ombudsman + LGSCO determinations

Failure demand and maladministration rates per landlord (Housing Ombudsman) and per council (Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman).

Part A: LGSCO annual review datasheets

Publisher: Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO)
Landing page: https://www.lgo.org.uk/information-centre/reports/annual-review-reports/local-government-complaint-reviews
Granularity: per English local authority (Authority Name rows). Coverage: England only. LGSCO's jurisdiction excludes Wales/Scotland/NI.
Editions downloaded: 2024-25 (latest complete year, published summer 2025) and 2023-24. The landing page also carries in-year 2025-26 files (partial year) and editions back to 2015-16.
Refresh cadence: annual (full-year datasheets published around July each year; next full edition ~July 2026 for 2025-26); in-year files updated during the year.

Files in `data/lgsco/` and original URLs

File	Original URL
1-Complaints-Received-24-25.csv	https://www.lgo.org.uk/assets/attach/6815/1-Complaints-Received-24-25.csv
2-Complaints-Decided-24-25.csv	https://www.lgo.org.uk/assets/attach/6818/2-Complaints-Decided-24-25.csv
3-Remedy-Compliance-Outcomes-24-25.csv	https://www.lgo.org.uk/assets/attach/6821/3-Remedy-Compliance-Outcomes-24-25.csv
4-Effective-Complaint-Handling-Courses-24-25.csv	https://www.lgo.org.uk/assets/attach/6824/4-Effective-Complaint-Handling-Courses-24-25.csv
1-Complaints-Received-23-24.csv	https://www.lgo.org.uk/assets/attach/6633/1-Complaints-Received-23-24.csv
2-Complaints-Decided-23-24.csv	https://www.lgo.org.uk/assets/attach/6635/2-Complaints-Decided-23-24.csv
3-Remedy-Compliance-Outcomes-23-24.csv	https://www.lgo.org.uk/assets/attach/6638/3-Remedy-Compliance-Outcomes-23-24.csv

XLSX and ODS versions of each file also exist at neighbouring assets/attach/ IDs on the landing page.

Access caveat — geo-blocking (browser/Wayback required)

lgo.org.uk returned "Connection denied by Geolocation" for both the pages and the asset URLs from this (non-UK) network, and presents a certificate that fails validation via the browser. Files were therefore retrieved byte-for-byte via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, e.g.:

curl -L --compressed -o 1-Complaints-Received-24-25.csv \
  "https://web.archive.org/web/2026id_/https://www.lgo.org.uk/assets/attach/6815/1-Complaints-Received-24-25.csv"

From a UK IP the direct URLs above should work with plain curl -L -O <url>.

Data caveats

CSVs have 3 header/preamble rows before the Authority Name column-header row.
"Upheld rate" is computed on detailed investigations only, a minority of complaints received — small-council rates are volatile.
Complaints are recorded against the authority complained about; post-2023 local-government reorganisations mean some rows are predecessor councils in older editions.
Licence: unconfirmed. No OGL statement found on the datasheet page; LGSCO is a Crown-adjacent body but confirm before republishing.

Part B: Housing Ombudsman — Annual Complaints Review 2024-25

Publisher: Housing Ombudsman Service
Landing page: https://www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk/annual-complaint-review-reports/annual-complaints-review-2024-25/ (published September 2025)
Granularity: per landlord (the 281 landlords — councils and housing associations — with 5+ findings determined in 2024-25). Coverage: England (social landlords in the Ombudsman's scheme). Period: 1 April 2024 – 31 March 2025, with trend analysis over prior financial years included in the workbook.
Refresh cadence: annual (autumn); provisional quarterly per-landlord statistics appear during the year at https://www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk/reports/landlord-complaint-statistics/ but as web/PDF content, not data files. Next annual edition ~autumn 2026.

File in `data/housing-ombudsman/`

Tables-for-landlords-with-individual-performance-reports-2024-25.xlsx (412 KB; sheets: Notes, Definitions, Tables 1–6)
URL: https://www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk/app/uploads/2025/09/Tables-for-landlords-with-individual-performance-reports-2024-25.xlsx

curl -L -O "https://www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk/app/uploads/2025/09/Tables-for-landlords-with-individual-performance-reports-2024-25.xlsx"

Caveats

Only landlords with 5+ findings get rows; smaller landlords/councils are absent — absence is not evidence of good performance.
No equivalent bulk data file was found for the 2023-24 Annual Complaints Review (that edition published individual PDF reports and a lookup tool only); the 2024-25 workbook's built-in trend columns are the practical prior-year source.
Individual determinations exist only as a case-decision search (no bulk download). A full determinations corpus would require scraping the decisions database.
Licence: unconfirmed (no OGL statement on the review page). Housing Ombudsman content is generally Crown copyright; confirm before republishing.

What a full collection would take

Per-council mapping requires joining HO landlord names to council names (councils that transferred stock to ALMOs/associations appear under the landlord's name, not the council's), and scraping the HO decisions search plus LGSCO's decision-search for case-level detail.