Bath and North East Somerset Council
Complaint overview
Between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we dealt with 28 complaints. Of these, 4 were not for us or not ready for us to investigate. We assessed and closed 17 complaints. We investigated 7 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 7 complaints and upheld 7.
100% of complaints we investigated were upheld.
This compares to an average of 80% in similar authorities.
View upheld decisionsAdjusted for Bath and North East Somerset Council's population, this is 3.5 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 0 out of 7 upheld cases we found the Council had provided a satisfactory remedy before the complaint reached the Ombudsman.
0% 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 7 cases.
In 7 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 Bath and North East Somerset 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: 24 010 640
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- To improve its complaints handling, the Council agreed to: • Write to service managers responsible for complaints handling and instruct them to check if complainants want a stage 2 complaint response if this is not clear from their correspondence. • Write to complaints officers to remind them of the importance of both opening all messages posted to its online complaint service and then responding to them quickly and in line with relevant published time targets.
Case reference: 24 001 607
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Assessment and care plan
- The Council has agreed to:a) take action to ensure people’s care and support plans are reviewed at least every 12 months;b) identify the action it is going to take to ensure that, when people raise complaints about the Council and other commissioned services, they receive a consolidated response to all their concerns.
Case reference: 24 002 922
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Charging
- The Council agreed that it would review the communications it has with those who use adult care services, or their relatives, in the event of an NHS decision to remove continuing healthcare funding. This was to ensure those affected by such decisions knew the Council would assess care needs and to provide some basic information about when it might fund social care needs.
- The Council agreed that further to the review of communications it would also brief its social work staff on its expectations. This briefing would highlight the importance of transparency and openness about its involvement in such cases, areas where we found fault with the Council during this investigation.
Case reference: 23 019 676
Category: Education
Sub Category: Alternative provision
- The Council will review its policies and procedures to make sure it retains sufficient oversight and control over what a school is doing on its behalf.
Case reference: 23 014 363
Category: Education
Sub Category: Alternative provision
- The Council will share this decision with relevant staff.
Case reference: 23 006 727
Category: Education
Sub Category: Alternative provision
- The Council will send a reminder to officers dealing with EHC needs assessments to remind them of the need to comply with the timescales in the code of practice.
- The Council will provide evidence to the Ombudsman of the work it is undertaking as part of the business change programme to track annual reviews of EHC plans to make sure the timescales set out in the code of practice are adhered to.
Case reference: 22 017 440
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Residential care
- Within three months of my decision, the Council will review its policies to ensure people are offered choice as part of this discharge process, or any decision to restrict choice is properly considered and recorded. The Council will also ensure that all staff are aware of any changes arising from this.
Case reference: 22 011 772
Category: Transport and highways
Sub Category: Parking and other penalties
- The Council has agreed to review its current approach to taking payments by text message and telephone to ensure car park users are charged the correct amount for the duration of their stay, taking account of varied evening and overnight tariffs.
Case reference: 22 009 364
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Charging
- The Council will carry out a training session for social workers in how to assess DRE.
Case reference: 21 012 022
Category: Education
Sub Category: School transport
- The Council agreed to ensure panel members considering school transport appeals make notes of their deliberations. It will also ensure the panel provide parents with detailed explanations of its decisions in the transport appeal decision letter.
Last updated: 4 April 2015