North Northamptonshire Council
North Northamptonshire Council is a merger of several councils and the historical information for these are located from the following links.
Corby Borough Council
East Northamptonshire Council
Kettering Borough Council
Wellingborough Borough Council
Northamptonshire County Council
Complaint overview
Between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we dealt with 119 complaints. Of these, 54 were not for us or not ready for us to investigate. We assessed and closed 43 complaints. We investigated 22 complaints.
More about this data
Complaints dealt with – the total number of complaints and enquiries considered. It is not appropriate to investigate all of them.
Not for us – includes complaints brought to us before the council was given chance to consider it, or the complainant came to the wrong Ombudsman.
Assessed and closed – includes complaints where the law says we’re not allowed to investigate, or it would be a poor use of public funds if we did.
Investigated – we completed an investigation and made a decision on whether we found fault, or no fault.
Complaints upheld – we completed an investigation and found evidence of fault, or the organisation provided a suitable remedy early on.
Satisfactory remedies provided by the Council – the council upheld the complaint and we agreed with how it offered to put things right.
Compliance with Ombudsman recommendations – not complying with our recommendations is rare. A council with a compliance rate below 100% should scrutinise the complaints where it failed to comply and identify any learning.
Average performance rates – we compare the annual statistics of similar types of councils to work out an average level of performance. We do this for County Councils, District Councils, Metropolitan Boroughs, Unitary Councils, and London Boroughs.
For more information on understanding our statistics see Interpreting our complaints data.
Complaints dealt with
Not for us
Assessed and closed
Investigated
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Complaints upheld
We investigated 22 complaints and upheld 19.
86% of complaints we investigated were upheld.
This compares to an average of 80% in similar authorities.
View upheld decisionsAdjusted for North Northamptonshire Council's population, this is 5.2 upheld decisions per 100,000 residents.
The average for authorities of this type is
5.3 upheld decisions per 100,000 residents. -
Satisfactory remedies provided by the Council
In 1 out of 19 upheld cases we found the Council had provided a satisfactory remedy before the complaint reached the Ombudsman.
5% satisfactory remedy rate.
This compares to an average of 10% in similar authorities.
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Compliance with Ombudsman recommendations
We recorded compliance outcomes in 18 cases.
In 17 cases we were satisfied with the actions taken.94% compliance rate with recommendations.
This compares to an average of 100% in similar authorities.
Annual letters
We write to councils each year to give a summary of the complaint statistics we record about them,
and their performance in responding to our investigations.
Reports
The Ombudsman has published the following reports against North Northamptonshire Council
Find out more about reports
We issue reports on certain investigations, particularly where there is a wider public interest to do so. Common reasons for reports are significant injustice, systemic issues, major learning points and non-compliance with our recommendations. Issuing reports is one way we help to ensure councils are accountable to local people and highlighting the learning from complaints helps to improve services for everybody. Reports are published for 10 years.
No reports published
Service improvements
The Council has agreed to make the following improvements to its services following an Ombudsman investigation.
Find out more about service improvements
When we find fault, we can recommend improvements to systems and processes where they haven’t worked properly, so that others do not suffer from these same problems in future. Common examples are policy changes; procedural reviews; and staff training. Service improvements from decisions are published for 5 years and those from reports are published for 10 years.
The latest 10 cases are listed below – click ‘view all’ to find all service improvements.
Case reference: 24 021 611
Category: Education
Sub Category: Alternative provision
- The Council will ensure it has a process in place to ensure that where a refusal to complete an Education, Health and Care needs assessment decision is overturned during a mediation meeting, the assessment should begin without delay and the agreement to assess letter should be issued without delay. The Council should make its relevant teams aware of this process.
Case reference: 24 017 975
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council should remind staff in its Special Educational Needs and Disability team of the need to follow the Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations where a child with an Education, Health and Care Plan moves into the Council’s area and the importance of ensuring Education, Health and Care Plan provision is in place and annual reviews are completed by the relevant deadlines.
Case reference: 24 017 239
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Safeguarding
- The Council will ensure it has a robust system in place to prevent staff absences causing delays to section 42 Care Act 2014 safeguarding enquiries.
Case reference: 24 013 166
Category: Planning
Sub Category: Enforcement
- The Council agreed to issue advice to its planning enforcement officers on the importance of keeping clear records of their contacts with developers and their evolving thinking on their approach towards taking enforcement action. In particular, that they would record their thinking if a developer failed to comply with an Enforcement Warning Notice as happened in this case.
- The Council agreed to introduce clear customer service standards for communicating with those who report breaches of planning control triggering planning enforcement enquiries. This would ensure regular contact with those reporting breaches during the course of enquiries that may last many weeks or months.
- The Council agreed also to review the performance of its planning service in responding to complaints, following an eight month delay in answering a complaint in this case. If delays were not reducing the Council agreed it would draw up a plan of action to tackle and monitor this.
Case reference: 24 011 415
Category: Education
Sub Category: School transport
- Issue reminder guidance about decision making for school transport applications. Ensure staff are aware of the need to evidence availability of school places in decision making, and in communication to parents.
- Share learning from this decision with the relevant teams, and panel members.
Case reference: 24 010 308
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council failed to ensure a child received the special educational needs support from their Education, Health and Care Plan.The Council hasagreed to remind its officers that the duty to arrange the provision in sectionF of Education, Health and Care Plans is non-delegable in law and the Councilremains responsible.
- The Council hasagreed to remind its officers that annual reviews are a key opportunity for theCouncil to check that special educational provision from Education, Health andCare Plans is in place and if it learns this is not being delivered, it should actpromptly to arrange the provision.
- The Council has agreed to investigate what led to the delays in complaint handling in this case and outline action it has taken to prevent these delays in future.
Case reference: 24 005 627
Category: Education
Sub Category: Alternative provision
- The Council will remind relevant officers, either through training or a briefing note of the Council’s duties to consider its section 19 duty as soon as it is aware that a child is not attending school. The Council will also provide relevant officers with a copy of our guidance Out of school, out of sight? published July 2022.
Case reference: 23 020 479
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Allocations
- The Council agreed tio share this case with its homelessness and allocations officers to emphasise the importance of examining the evidence submitted promptly and making timely decisions.
Case reference: 24 014 934
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- the Council has agreed to complete a review of why there were delays in carrying out the agreed on service improvement recommendations and advise what actions it intends to take to prevent future reoccurrences.
Case reference: 23 019 041
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Safeguarding
- The Council has agreed to remind its Quality Monitoring Team to follow up with service users to assure itself that that issues with care providers have been resolved following monitoring visits.
Last updated: 4 April 2015