This is the change from one year to the next in how many complaints the watchdog upheld against the council — its direction of travel. It matters because a single year can be a fluke: a rising count suggests things are getting worse (or more residents are escalating), a falling one suggests improvement. Small councils' numbers swing a lot, so treat modest changes with caution.
| name | lgsco_upheld_yoy_change |
|---|---|
| dataset | 09-ombudsman-lgsco |
| kind | constructed |
| type | difference |
| unit | complaints |
| grain | council-year |
| role | feature |
| source | upheld(24-25) − upheld(23-24) (lgsco file 2, both editions, joined on `Authority Name`) |
| period | 2023-24 to 2024-25 |
| 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). Year-on-year join on `Authority Name` breaks for councils reorganised in 2023 — successor councils have no 2023-24 row. |
| score_note | Direction of travel; two-year join breaks for reorganised councils and is noisy on small counts. |
| peer_group | council class (district / county / unitary / metropolitan / London) — not yet scored on the leaderboard |
Change in upheld findings between the two editions — the council's direction of travel. Beware the April 2023 local-government reorganisation: successor councils cannot be joined to a predecessor year and come out missing, not zero.