Bracknell Forest Council
Complaint overview
Between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we dealt with 29 complaints. Of these, 4 were not for us or not ready for us to investigate. We assessed and closed 14 complaints. We investigated 11 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 11 complaints and upheld 11.
100% of complaints we investigated were upheld.
This compares to an average of 80% in similar authorities.
View upheld decisionsAdjusted for Bracknell Forest Council's population, this is 8.6% 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 3 out of 11 upheld cases we found the Council had provided a satisfactory remedy before the complaint reached the Ombudsman.
27% 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 8 cases.
In 8 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 Bracknell Forest 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: 23 015 717
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council has explained it has recently restructured the SEND team and employed more staff to cope with increasing demands. The Council should provide the Ombudsman with a brief summary of action taken far to improve its service going forwards.
Case reference: 23 007 019
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council must remind staff to clearly set out decision letters along with any appeal rights when telling parents or carers of the outcome of a decision not to assess, reassess, issue or amend an Education, Health and Care Plan as set out in the SEN Regulations 2014.
Case reference: 23 006 255
Category: Education
Sub Category: Alternative provision
- The Council has agreed to review, and if needed amend, the policy/mechanism it has in place for how schools inform it of the details of pupils who fail to attend school regularly, or have missed ten school days or more, as outlined in the statutory guidance, to ensure it is receiving timely and suitable information about children out of education from schools.
Case reference: 22 018 140
Category: Education
Sub Category: Alternative provision
- The Council agreed to review its policies and procedures for making decisions about alternative educational provision under section 19 of the Education Act. It should ensure its procedures follow the appropriate law and statutory guidance, that it seeks relevant information on which to base its decisions and that it has a suitable process for monitoring the quality of decisions made under these duties; and arrange appropriate training for education and Special Educational Needs staff on the Council’s updated policy and procedures. This training should include the Ombudsman’s Out of Sight focus report and the findings of this investigation.
- The Council agreed to review its arrangements for managing complaints about its Special Educational Needs service. This should include a plan for how the Council will ensure the service is appropriately staffed to allow the Council to respond to complaints in line with its published complaint’s procedure.
Case reference: 22 015 918
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council should: a) Provide us with its plan to improve compliance with the EHC plan timescales; andb) Advise the outcome of the review of its processes regarding 'Education other than at school ' payment when the EHCP and provision are unchanged
Case reference: 22 013 387
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council will share the Ombudsman’s guidance “Out of school, out of sight” with those officers dealing with Special Educational Needs cases. This will help to ensure officers are clear on the Council’s duties to organise alternative education provision under Section 19 of the Education Act 1996 and to review the education of those on a part-time timetable.
- The Council will remind officers dealing with Education, Health and Care Plan paperwork of the need for accuracy when sending out decision letters. This will help to ensure parents and carers are clear on where they stand and what options are open to them after any decisions have been made.
- The Council will remind relevant Special Educational Needs team officers of the need to communicate in a timely manner. This will help to ensure that parents and carers are adequately aware of progress being made on their cases.
- The Council will remind officers dealing with Special Educational Needs complaints of the need to handle these in line with the Council’s published policy and timescales. The Council will also share the Ombudsman’s guidance on effective complaint handling for local authorities with the officers. This will help to ensure that complaints are dealt with in a timely and effective manner.
- The Council will make it clear to officers dealing with complaints about delivery of educational provision set out in Section F of an Education, Health and Care Plan, that these can be considered under the Council’s complaints procedure. This will help to ensure clarity for those complaining. It will also help to ensure they are not given the incorrect information on how to complain about this.
Case reference: 22 013 300
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council has agreed to review how it considers and records whether it has an alternative provision duty where it has been notified that children are out of school long term.
Case reference: 22 007 716
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Other
- The Council has agreed to remind all staff that deal with mental capacity assessments and best interests decision making, that the Mental Capacity Act clearly sets out which people should be consulted in capacity assessments on the person’s behalf and that working for a care organisation in a paid capacity does not automatically prohibit a carer from being consulted due to ‘conflict of interest’.
- The Council has agreed to remind its complaint handling staff that it is important to inform the complainant in the Council’s complaint responses of any right they have to escalate that complaint.
- The Council has agreed to review its systems and put in place measures to prevent complaints being moved into spam folders, or to have these folders checked more routinely for complaints sent there in error.
Case reference: 22 007 045
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- Issue a briefing to ensure staff are aware of the Councils statutory obligation and those of the school as detailed in the Education Act 1996 to ensure a child receives a suitable education if they are unable to attend school.
- Remind all relevant staff of the need to ensure all complaints complete the complaint process fully and requests for escalation to the next stage of the process are actioned without delay.
- Review its procedures and provide guidance to its staff to ensure decisions made to maintain, amend or cease EHCP’s following reviews are issued within the statutory timescales.
- Review its policies and procedures to ensure the Council retains oversight and responsibility for its duties to children unable to attend school.
Case reference: 22 003 230
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council will reviewits Annual Review processes to ensure: a) sending a notification of the Council’s position within four weeksfrom the Annual Review meeting, and b) sending the final amended EHCP not later than eight weeks from thedate of sending the child’s parents/young person proposed amendments are part of the process and all front-line staff are aware of this.
- The Council will provide its SEN case officers and managers with the training on SEN Personal Budget. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.
Last updated: 4 April 2015