Central Bedfordshire Council
Complaint overview
Between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we dealt with 75 complaints. Of these, 25 were not for us or not ready for us to investigate. We assessed and closed 33 complaints. We investigated 17 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 17 complaints and upheld 15.
88% of complaints we investigated were upheld.
This compares to an average of 80% in similar authorities.
View upheld decisionsAdjusted for Central Bedfordshire Council's population, this is 4.9 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 2 out of 15 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 10% in similar authorities.
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Compliance with Ombudsman recommendations
We recorded compliance outcomes in 13 cases.
In 13 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 Central Bedfordshire 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.
Bedfordshire boy missed more than a year’s education because of council failures
Central Bedfordshire Council is to review the way it provides alternative education for children who are unable to attend school because of medical issues following an investigation by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.
Clearer advice needed to help service users negotiate benefits payments
The message is highlighted in a recent investigation into a complaint about Central Bedfordshire Council in which a woman, who has significant disabilities, was left without proper care and support because of a lack of proper information.
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: 24 008 847
Category: Education
Sub Category: Alternative provision
- The Council agreed to remind staff about the importance of making and recording timely decisions about the section 19 duty to provide alternative education and communicating this with parents.
- The Council agreed to remind staff about the legislation and guidance about recording absences and how this impacts on the section 19 duty to provide alternative education.
Case reference: 24 001 147
Category: Education
Sub Category: Alternative provision
- Remind relevant staff of the Councils duty to secure education and EHCP provision for children not able to attend school.
- Remind relevant staff of the importance of effective complaint handling.
Case reference: 23 021 044
Category: Education
Sub Category: Alternative provision
- The Council has agreed to share the findings of the Ombudsman's investigation, and a copy of our focus report Out of school, out of sight? with relevant officers. This will highlight good practice and identify wider points of learning.
Case reference: 23 017 717
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council has agreed to send us an action plan which sets out how, in future, it will ensure there is clarity in its monitoring of the delivery of special educational needs provision.
Case reference: 23 015 961
Category: Education
Sub Category: Alternative provision
- Remind relevant staff of the Councils duty to secure education and EHCP provision for children not able to attend school.
- Remind relevant staff of the importance of effective complaint handling.
Case reference: 23 015 668
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Private housing
- The Council has agreed to review its process for handling compensation claims about defective work or damage caused to a service-user’s property by contractors doing work under the framework agreement. The process should be consistent with what it says in the framework agreement about the Council’s role in recovery of costs.
Case reference: 23 015 514
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council will provide us with its plan to ensure it carries out all actions within the Annual Reviews of children's EHC Plans within the statutory timescales.
Case reference: 23 012 830
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council should improve the process for reviewing and updating personal budgets, ensuring they are adjusted in line with service costs and communicated to families in a timely manner. This will help prevent delays and avoid the need for families to intervene to secure funding.
Case reference: 23 002 708
Category: Education
Sub Category: Alternative provision
- The Council agreed to produce, and share with the Ombudsman, a detailed action plan for how it intends to address the lack of capacity in its educational psychology service and the delays this has caused to producing education health and care plans.
- The Council agreed to review how its special educational needs team monitors and records contacts to ensure it records and responds to contact in a timely manner, and that it pro-actively keeps people up-to-date where there are delays.
Case reference: 22 014 503
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council will review its monitoring of part-time timetables process introducing consideration at every review of the child's part-time timetable whether the Council needs to supplement education provided by the school with alternative education. The Council will provide the evidence this has happened.
Last updated: 4 April 2015