Bristol City Council
Complaint overview
Between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we dealt with 196 complaints. Of these, 70 were not for us or not ready for us to investigate. We assessed and closed 80 complaints. We investigated 46 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 46 complaints and upheld 38.
83% of complaints we investigated were upheld.
This compares to an average of 80% in similar authorities.
View upheld decisionsAdjusted for Bristol City Council's population, this is 7.9% 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 38 upheld cases we found the Council had provided a satisfactory remedy before the complaint reached the Ombudsman.
11% 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 30 cases.
In 30 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 Bristol City 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.
City council censured for complaints response
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has heavily criticised Bristol City Council for failing to provide evidence it had completed previously agreed recommendations in two separate complaints.
Homeless family left to live in hotel rooms for three years by Bristol City Council, Ombudsman finds
A family, including children with disabilities, shared a single hotel room for more than three years because Bristol City Council did not treat their housing and homelessness applications properly, a Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman investigation has found.
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: 24 014 400
Category: Benefits and tax
Sub Category: Council tax
- Improve internal guidance or undertake staff training to ensure accurate and consistent advice on council tax liabilities, particularly in relation to HMOs and exemptions.
Case reference: 24 012 966
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Disabled facilities grants
- The Council has agreed to: by team meetings, staff circulars, or training, remind staff about when to carry out social care reviews and that duties under the Care Act 2014 are ongoing even if other Council departments are involved,
- remind relevant housing and social care staff to work together when there are adaptations so people’s needs are met when completing adaptation work;
- review the Council’s process/policy to ensure it includes a specific step to consider how people’s care needs are to be met when there is adaptation work.
Case reference: 24 007 625
Category: Environment and regulation
Sub Category: Refuse and recycling
- Carry out a review of the issues Mrs X has had with her assisted collections, (to cover at least the last 12 weeks) and determine the cause of the issues.
- Work with provider B to review its waste collection monitoring arrangements to ensure they are robust and effective in identifying and resolving any problems and in improving service levels.
- Ensure the review and associated action plan, is considered monthly at the contract meetings between provider B and the Council. Ensure this takes place over the next 12 months to enable a meaningful period of monitoring.
Case reference: 24 005 216
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Allocations
- The Council will send a reminder to officers about the need to consider whether a housing applicant has exceptional circumstances which warrant inclusion on the direct offer list and to ensure decisions about that are communicated to the housing applicant.
Case reference: 24 004 803
Category: Education
Sub Category: Other
- The Council has agreed to demonstrate to the Ombudsman that senior management have taken over the work between the childcare provider and the Council with regards to the nursery's compliance with law and guidance in how it charges parents for funded nursery hours.
- The Council has agreed to show the Ombudsman what action it has taken to prevent residents using the nursery being charged additional fees on top of childcare hours that should be free. This consideration might include removing the provider from the scheme for funded nursery hours.
Case reference: 24 004 556
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council failed to arrange the Occupational Therapy provision in the final Education, Health, and Care Plan for a full year. It agreed to review what happened in this case and produce an action plan, with dates, of steps it needs to take to prevent similar issues in future. As part of this review, it will specifically consider:if there were avoidable delays in searching for an Occupational Therapy provider which should be addressed by changes to administrative processes, or staff training; andif there are steps it should take to address any issues with Occupational Therapy capacity in its area.
Case reference: 24 003 802
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council will share this decision with staff, and remind relevant staff to be alert to concerns that an EHC Plan is not fully implemented, so the Council can be certain it is meeting its duty to make sure the provision is made.
Case reference: 24 002 934
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Homelessness
- Provide guidance to staff about who or what team they need to contact to arrange for the storage of a person’s possessions.
- Develop a policy or guidance for staff setting out the correct way interim and temporary accommodation should be ended. The Council should ensure it sets out:a.The correct notice a person should receive depending on the type of accommodation they occupy. b.Whether there is a need to apply to court for possession and eviction. c.How those who have stayed in the same accommodation after the main housing duty has been accepted should be treated.
Case reference: 24 002 809
Category: Education
Sub Category: Alternative provision
- Provide guidance to staff to consider any action required under the Council’s statutory duties when it becomes aware of non-attendance at schools, and to record all actions, communication and decision making as part of this consideration.
Case reference: 24 002 303
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Homelessness
- The Council has agreed to share a copy of this decision with staff in the relevant departments to share the learning and the good practice highlighted by this case.
- The Council has agreed to identify and implement a process to enable the Council to pick up and deal with time-sensitive cases when an officer is off sick or on leave.
- The Council has agreed to remind staff responsible for responding to complaints that they should keep complainants informed of any delays and provide a new, realistic, deadline response for a response.
- The Council has agreed to remind staff responsible for responding to complaints that where the Council upholds the complaint, it should consider what it needs to do to remedy the injustice caused to the complainant.
Last updated: 4 April 2015