West Northamptonshire Council
West Northamptonshire Council is a merger of several councils and the historical information for these are located from the following links.
Daventry District Council
Northampton Borough Council
South Northamptonshire District Council
Northamptonshire County Council
Complaint overview
Between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we dealt with 130 complaints. Of these, 38 were not for us or not ready for us to investigate. We assessed and closed 55 complaints. We investigated 37 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 37 complaints and upheld 33.
89% of complaints we investigated were upheld.
This compares to an average of 80% in similar authorities.
View upheld decisionsAdjusted for West Northamptonshire Council's population, this is 7.6 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 4 out of 33 upheld cases we found the Council had provided a satisfactory remedy before the complaint reached the Ombudsman.
12% 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 29 cases.
In 29 cases we were satisfied with the actions taken.100% 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 West 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.
West Northamptonshire failed to provide education for numerous children with SEND
West Northamptonshire Council has agreed to review the cases of eight children with Special Educational Needs, who have been out of school for long periods, following an Ombudsman investigation.
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: 25 004 574
Category: Children's care services
Sub Category: Child protection
- The Council will deliver training for relevant staff on the importance of engaging and working in partnership with fathers when receiving child safeguarding referrals from other agencies and generally.
Case reference: 25 001 155
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council will ensure it has a robust process in place to ensure all teams who support children out of education are able to refer the child to the relevant panel for section 19 consideration to determine whether alternative provision is required.
Case reference: 24 023 200
Category: Transport and highways
Sub Category: Parking and other penalties
- •Remind relevant staff of the importance of effective complaint handling and responding in line with the Council policy.
- •Remind relevant staff to fully consider representations and evidence provided in response to Penalty Charge Notices.
Case reference: 24 021 929
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council has agreed to review this case to determine why the funding for the education mentor was delayed and share the learning from this with the relevant officers.
- The Council has agreed to create an action plan to address how it will improve checks on whether children are receiving special educational provision they are entitled to and take timely action to put this in place.
Case reference: 24 018 373
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council has agreed to provide training and/or guidance to the relevant officers to ensure home education plans are approved in line with the relevant guidance and action is taken when it is clear the child is not receiving a suitable education.
Case reference: 24 015 710
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Other
- In this complaint a woman who had been detained under section 3 of the Mental Health Act 1983 was discharged without a s117 aftercare plan. Further, neither the Council nor the Trust told the ICB of the woman's eligibility for s117. And, no organisation completed a s117 aftercare plan in the community. We found this was all fault. We asked the Council to review the case - either on its own or in collaboration with its NHS partners - as a learning tool, with a view to making specific, measurable andrealistic service improvements.
Case reference: 24 013 887
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Charging
- •Remind relevant officers of the importance of carrying out the financial assessment and informing the person of the outcome of the assessment as soon as possible and preferably at the same time as the care plan is being decided.
Case reference: 24 012 531
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Charging
- The Council will review process of arranging care needs assessments and preparing support plans to ensure social workers:a) provide comprehensive information on the Council’s rules for charging early in the process and during the care assessment at the latest;b) after completing care needs assessments and support plans send them to the residents.
- The Council will review timeliness of financial assessments to ensure they are concluded and sent to the residents with relevant advice before the Council starts charging for care services.
Case reference: 24 006 399
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Assessment and care plan
- The Council agreed to remind its adult social care staff about the importance of clear communication, especially with members of the public who are less familiar with the adult social care system.
Case reference: 24 008 783
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Homelessness
- The Council has agreed to provide further training for housing and homelessness staff on identifying and carrying out homelessness applications, paying particular attention to when there may be reason to believe an applicant is in priority need.
- The Council has also agreed to circulate this investigation, Mr X’s previous investigation, and the lessons learnt to housing and homelessness managers and team leaders.
Last updated: 4 April 2015