When residents escalate complaints about their council to the independent watchdog (the LGSCO), the watchdog eventually reaches a decision on each — from 'not for us' to a full investigation verdict. This counts all decisions made about the council in a year. It's the base volume for judging shares like the uphold rate: high just means many cases were concluded, and says nothing by itself about whether the council was at fault.
| name | lgsco_decided_total |
|---|---|
| dataset | 09-ombudsman-lgsco |
| kind | extracted |
| type | count |
| unit | complaints/year |
| grain | council-year |
| role | denominator |
| source | data/lgsco/2-Complaints-Decided-{yy}-{yy}.csv, column `Total` |
| period | 2023-24 and 2024-25 editions |
| missingness | Rows exist only for councils in scope of LGSCO; `Upheld decisions per 100,000 residents` and rate columns are blank for zero-decision councils. Percent columns in file 2 are strings like `67%`. Join to Housing Ombudsman data is by name and lossy (ALMO/association names don't match council names). |
| score_note | Denominator volume, near-duplicate of complaints received in practice. |
| peer_group | council class (district / county / unitary / metropolitan / London) — not yet scored on the leaderboard |
Total complaints and enquiries the LGSCO decided in the year, across all outcomes. The base volume against which investigation and uphold shares can be computed. Decisions, not receipts — timing differences mean it need not equal complaints received.