authority provides a co-ordinated response on a complaint about both health and social care issues, does it have to tell complainants to approach both the Local Government and the Health Service Ombudsmen, if they remain dissatisfied? This should not be necessary -- the complainant only has to contact one of the Ombudsmen. Both the LGO and HSO have established arrangements to communicate with each other about complaints that span their jurisdictional boundaries. We also have powers to investigate and report on complaints jointly (with the consent of the complainant) where this seems to us to be appropriate. Ombudsmen??s recommendations Generally speaking, no. If we find that there has been some fault in the way a decision was taken, we may be able to ask the council to reconsider it, depending on the circumstances of the complaint. If that is not possible we might ask the council, where appropriate, to pay you compensation for the effects of a decision which was not made in the correct way. But the Ombudsman cannot act as an appeal body against a council's decision and has no legal power to overturn or override a decision. So, for example, the Ombudsman will not be able to get the council to stop your neighbour building an extension for which planning permission has been granted. Can the Ombudsmen force a council to follow their recommendations? No. The Ombudsmen have no legal power to make the council act on their decisions. But in nearly all cases councils do follow