Bury Metropolitan Borough Council
Complaint overview
Between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we dealt with 89 complaints. Of these, 38 were not for us or not ready for us to investigate. We assessed and closed 37 complaints. We investigated 14 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 14 complaints and upheld 10.
71% of complaints we investigated were upheld.
This compares to an average of 81% in similar authorities.
View upheld decisionsAdjusted for Bury Metropolitan Borough Council's population, this is 5.1 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 2 out of 10 upheld cases we found the Council had provided a satisfactory remedy before the complaint reached the Ombudsman.
20% 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 9 cases.
In 9 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 Bury 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.
Councils should remedy without delay – Ombudsman
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has been compelled to highlight two cases where a council has not acted to put things right in good time.
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: 24 022 770
Category: Environment and regulation
Sub Category: Refuse and recycling
- The Council agreed to remind relevant officers to decide whether residents are making service requests or complaints. Officers should register formal complaints when asked to do so.
Case reference: 24 021 752
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council should provide the Ombudsman with a copy of its SEND improvement plan and evidence of what it has already carried out to improve timeliness of annual reviews and oversight of school attendance and children/young people with Education Other than at School (EOTAS) packages.
- The Council should provide an update on any actions carried out under its SEND improvement plan with regards to timeliness of annual reviews and oversight of school attendance and children/young people with Education Other than at School (EOTAS) packages.
Case reference: 24 021 278
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council will put a new system in place to ensure agreed actions from complaint responses are complied with.
Case reference: 24 019 017
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council will provide an action plan showing how it intends to improve its processes around Education, Health and Care Plans to ensure it holds annual reviews prior to issuing any amended plans and to ensure specialist provision outlined in Education, Health and Care Plans is available and in place at the time plans are issued.
Case reference: 24 016 941
Category: Environment and regulation
Sub Category: Refuse and recycling
- Issue a briefing to relevant staff members to remind them of the importance of following written collection instructions.
- The Council will send us evidence to show it has begun the process of reviewing its collections monitoring procedures. The review should include record-keeping and detail how the Council will keep record of collections monitoring and site visits going forward, so that it can evidence these actions in future if needed. Once the review is complete, the Council will send us evidence of this.
Case reference: 24 000 950
Category: Children's care services
Sub Category: Child protection
- The Council will publish two information leaflets to provide information on the care process.
Case reference: 24 000 867
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council has agreed to send us a plan which sets out what it intends to do to overcome similar difficulties securing home tuition for other children in future.
Case reference: 23 020 511
Category: Planning
Sub Category: Enforcement
- Consider what changes to practice and procedure are necessary to avoid delay in action and the failure to properly investigate planning enforcement complaints and planning enforcement enquiries in the future.
- Review its complaint handling procedure and explain what service improvements it will make to prevent similar occurrences. Any service improvements identified should ensure that complaints made to the Council are processed and responded to in line with its complaint policy.
Case reference: 23 018 631
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Council house sales and leaseholders
- The Council agreed to review why it did not provide an offer within 8 weeks of the Right to Buy application.
- The Council agreed to review why it failed to advise of the right to seek a remedy at court.
- The Council agreed to remind relevant officers of the need to make and retain requests for advice and the advice received from the government Right to Buy Help Team.
Case reference: 23 017 296
Category: Environment and regulation
Sub Category: Antisocial behaviour
- Remind staff to consider reports of alleged anti-social behaviour in line with the Council’s wider anti-social behaviour powers, including the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, not just as part of a review of tenancy agreements
- Remind staff to signpost complainants to the anti-social behaviour case review process.
Last updated: 4 April 2015