Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council
Complaint overview
Between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we dealt with 72 complaints. Of these, 39 were not for us or not ready for us to investigate. We assessed and closed 23 complaints. We investigated 10 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 10 complaints and upheld 8.
80% of complaints we investigated were upheld.
This compares to an average of 81% in similar authorities.
View upheld decisionsAdjusted for Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council's population, this is 2.6 upheld decisions per 100,000 residents.
The average for authorities of this type is
4.7 upheld decisions per 100,000 residents. -
Satisfactory remedies provided by the Council
In 1 out of 8 upheld cases we found the Council had provided a satisfactory remedy before the complaint reached the Ombudsman.
13% satisfactory remedy rate.
This compares to an average of 13% 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 Bolton Metropolitan Borough 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.
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has found Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council significantly reduced a disabled woman’s care package without properly assessing her needs.
Council needs to review whether children have lost out on school places
Bolton MBC should check whether any children have missed out on a place at their preferred school after the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) upheld a complaint about its schools allocation process.
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: 23 018 073
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Assessment and care plan
- The Council has agreed to identify the action it is going to take to ensure people are not charged for support they are not yet receiving, and people do not have to wait months for their support to be put in place.
Case reference: 23 017 268
Category: Benefits and tax
Sub Category: Council tax
- The Council will provide feedback to its council tax team on how it can improve the way it deals with vulnerable customers
- The Council has agreed to ensure that enforcement action for council tax debts is placed on hold in future when there is a complaint ongoing
Case reference: 23 009 086
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Charging
- The Council should review its process for dealing with disagreements about financial assessment outcomes to make any changes needed.
- The Council should inform adult social care staff of the process for dealing with financial assessment disagreements, including how they should inform service users of the process available.
Case reference: 23 003 789
Category: Education
Sub Category: School admissions
- The Council has agreed that it will issue a reminder to clerks that they must take detailed notes of the hearing and of the panel’s decision-making including the reasons for the panel’s decision at each stage of the process.
Case reference: 22 017 136
Category: Benefits and tax
Sub Category: Housing benefit and council tax benefit
- The Council has agreed to review its procedures to ensure it complies with the Housing Benefit Tribunal rules.
- The Council has agreed to review its procedures to ensure it processes all housing benefit appeals in a timely manner.
Case reference: 22 006 278
Category: Planning
Sub Category: Enforcement
- Remind staff to adhere to the Council’s enforcement policy, specifically regarding notifying informants when the Council decides there is no breach of planning permission
- Remind staff to adhere to the Council’s complaints policy timescales
- Remind staff to maintain clear and appropriate records to demonstrate clearly the rationale for their decisions
Case reference: 22 009 152
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Domiciliary care
- Ensures it asks complainants for payment details in good time to enable it to meet the agreed timescales for making payments recommended by the Ombudsman.
Case reference: 22 005 023
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Disabled facilities grants
- The Council agreed to discuss lessons from this complaint at a quarterly meeting where it reviews it adaptations service. This was to consider how it, and its partners, could further improve performance to ensure it met Government expectations on the timescales for DFG works to complete and to improve communications with landlords to prevent delays in obtaining landlord consent for works through lengthy exchanges of information.
- The Council will also complete the work of ensuring DFG applicants are kept informed of likely timescales at each stage of their journey through the process.
Case reference: 22 004 322
Category: Education
Sub Category: School admissions
- The Council will remind all school admission appeal clerking staff of the need to record the panel's reasons at both stages of the deliberations and explain them to parents/carers in the decision letter.
Case reference: 22 003 960
Category: Education
Sub Category: COVID-19
- The Council agreed to remind all school admissions appeal clerking staff of the need to record the reasons for the panel's decisions at both stages of the appeal deliberations and explain the reasons for the decisions to parents and carers in the decision letter.
Last updated: 4 April 2015