City Of Bradford Metropolitan District Council
Complaint overview
Between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we dealt with 148 complaints. Of these, 42 were not for us or not ready for us to investigate. We assessed and closed 72 complaints. We investigated 34 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 34 complaints and upheld 26.
76% of complaints we investigated were upheld.
This compares to an average of 81% in similar authorities.
View upheld decisionsAdjusted for City Of Bradford Metropolitan District Council's population, this is 4.6% 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 6 out of 26 upheld cases we found the Council had provided a satisfactory remedy before the complaint reached the Ombudsman.
23% 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 21 cases.
In 21 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 City Of Bradford Metropolitan District 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.
Autistic man failed by Bradford council
Bradford council’s failure to provide support to an autistic man has put his employment, family life and sense of self at risk, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has found.
Bradford council has agreed to review more than 500 benefit applications after the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman found delays in its appeals 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: 24 003 980
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council will circulate this decision to remind staff dealing with Education, Health and Care Plans of the importance of timely annual reviews, keeping proper records, issuing draft Education, Health and Care Plans before final Education, Health and Care Plans and providing appropriate transitional support.
Case reference: 24 000 904
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Residential care
- The Council will share with us a copy of the smoking policy and telemedicine procedure which the care home updated following the complaint investigation.
Case reference: 23 021 226
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Assessment and care plan
- The Council agreed that further to this investigation it would issue a reminder to all staff trained to undertake continuing healthcare checklist assessments of the need to provide information about the checklist before undertaking the assessment; ensuring those assessed know they can have a representative present (such as a family member) during the assessment; and to provide information on the outcome of the assessment.
Case reference: 23 019 207
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Direct payments
- Within three months of the final decision, the Council will send us confirmation it has changed its Direct Payments contracts to reflect the current legislation, or tells us when it will do so, and provide us with an updated copy.
Case reference: 23 018 713
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council has agreed to provide training or guidance to relevant staff on the Council’s duty to makealternative provision for children who cannot go to school for health reasons.
- The Council has agreed to ensure requests to the panel approving EOTAS include sufficient detail aboutthe consultations already made and provision considered to enable the panel tomake prompt and informed decisions about a child’s needs.
- The Council has agreed to remind relevant staff that the Council has a duty to secure the provision in anEHC plan and must act if it is aware a school or other provider is not makingthis provision.
- The Council has agreed to identify andimplement measures to ensure the Council issues a Final amended EHC planfollowing annual review, giving the parent or young person the right to appealto the Tribunal.
- The Council has agreed to remind officers dealing with complaints that when the Council has got somethingwrong, it should consider the impact on the complainant and offer anappropriate remedy.
Case reference: 23 017 736
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council agreed to review the faults identified in this case and produce an action plan for steps it will take to ensure it:carries out Education, Health, and Care (EHC) needs assessments within statutory timescales, including where it concedes an appeal to the First-tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities) about its decision not to carry out an assessment;properly considers its duty under section 19 of the Education Act 1996 to provide alternative education as soon as it is aware a child is out of school, properly records its considerations, and keeps arrangements under review;meets its duty to immediately secure the special educational needs (SEN) provision in a final EHC Plan. This includes proper consideration of to what extent it can deliver the Plan where a child is out of school; andcommunicates properly with families of SEN children where they raise concerns and queries, and responds in good time.
- The Council agreed to issue a reminder to staff that respond to complaints about its Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) service, about the importance of apologising to complainants where the Council accepts fault.
Case reference: 23 010 996
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Assessment and care plan
- The Council has agreed to provide training / reminders to relevant staff of the need to provide clear advice and explanations of the process to be followed when an increased care package is requested. And of the need to fully document the advice given.
Case reference: 22 017 466
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council failed to identify a school for a child, failed to ensure the child received the provision in their Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan, and has failed to issue a final Plan following the child's annual review. The Council has agreed to review this case and prepare an action plan setting out how it will ensure: annual reviews are carried out on time and, where it decides to amend an EHC Plan, the final Plan is issued within 12 weeks of an annual review meeting; andit retains oversight of children out of school not receiving education.
Case reference: 22 017 137
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Charging
- In this case a hospital referred an elderly patient to the Council to consider what support he might need when he left hospital. We found the Council closed its case too soon, without having suitable discussions with the family about the available options and the financial implications of each. The Council agreed it would share the learning from this case with all of its staff that are involved in hospital discharge planning.
Case reference: 23 006 153
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Residential care
- The Council failed to investigate a complaint about the level of care being provided by a care home. The Council will discuss this with the monitoring team and establish what action is required to address the failings by the care home and will follow this up with monitoring visits.
- The Council will consider lessons learned in respect of complaint investigation.
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Cases with service improvements agreed by City Of Bradford Metropolitan District Council
View allLast updated: 4 April 2015