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: 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.
Case reference: 24 007 298
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council has agreed to provide training to staff about identifying when a child is failing to access a suitable education and what steps the Council should take to detail its consideration of this access to education and how it proposes to address this. The Council should refer to the guidance Out of school out of sight? Published in July 2022 to inform this training.
Case reference: 24 006 290
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council will remind staff in its Special Educational Needs and Disability Serviceto ensure,thestatutory timescales for the Education, Health and Care Plan process followingannual reviews are always adhered to.
- The Council will remind staff in its Special Educational Needs and Disability Service toensure, requests from parents areresponded to in a timely manner. This is to ensure effective communication withthose involved and to avoid unnecessary delays and distress in the process.
Case reference: 23 018 294
Category: Planning
Sub Category: Enforcement
- The Council will remind its planning enforcement staff of the importance of responding to public enquiries and keeping the public updated on any enforcement investigations in a timely manner.
Case reference: 23 017 934
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council will provide us with a written report of its progress in reducing the backlog of delayed Education, Health and Care Plans.
Case reference: 23 017 013
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Charging
- The Council has agreed to:a) review the published guidance and the Council’s policy on Deferred Payment Agreements so that they are consistent;
- b) remind relevant staff members of the guidance, their discretionary powers and preventative duties;
- c) through a staff circular or team meeting remind staff about the need to communicate financial decisions promptly, clearly and in writing. This includes any dates or decisions;
- d) through a staff circular or team meeting remind staff about setting out how they have reached financial decisions including how they have made calculations;
- e) remind staff about the need to respond to complaints in a timely manner.
Case reference: 23 016 921
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council has agreed to review its procedure for amending EHC Plans following reviews (annual and emergency) to ensure any changes are made and a final EHC plan issued within a reasonable period of time (ideally in the region of 8 to 12 weeks from the review).
- The Council has agreed to offer training and/or guidance to all relevant staff on the requirement to consider alternative educational provision for children out of school for longer than 15 days due to illness, exclusion or otherwise
Case reference: 23 015 382
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council will provide training to its Special Educational Needs staff to ensure they understand the legal framework, the Council's obligations to complete the Educational, Health and Care needs assessment within the statutory timeframe, and when timeframe exemptions apply.
Case reference: 23 013 038
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- In a previous complaint Reference 23004841 the Council has agreed to take action to improve services when providing alternative education and improving timescales for completing EHC plans. I do not intend to repeat these actions but in addition the Council has agreed to:-a) provide evidence of the steps it is taking to address the delays in getting Educational Psychologist assessments;
- b) set out what steps/policy changes it is making to address communication with other local authorities where a child is attending an out of area school; and
- c) review why there was a delay in responding at Stage 2 of this complaint and take action to address any lessons learnt from the review.
Case reference: 23 004 887
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council has agreed to provide an update on progress with the service recommendations to improve the Council's processes.:
Last updated: 4 April 2015