Halton Borough Council
Complaint overview
Between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we dealt with 37 complaints. Of these, 11 were not for us or not ready for us to investigate. We assessed and closed 18 complaints. We investigated 8 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 8 complaints and upheld 6.
75% of complaints we investigated were upheld.
This compares to an average of 80% in similar authorities.
View upheld decisionsAdjusted for Halton Borough Council's population, this is 4.6 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 0 out of 6 upheld cases we found the Council had provided a satisfactory remedy before the complaint reached the Ombudsman.
0% 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 4 cases.
In 4 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 Halton 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.
Halton did not do enough to help homeless domestic abuse survivor
Halton Borough Council did not do enough to help a man who approached it for help when he became homeless because of domestic abuse, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has found.
Motorist not caused injustice by toll bridge charges
A Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman investigation has found a motorist was not caused any injustice when he was charged a penalty for not paying a toll to cross the Mersey Gateway Bridge.
Councils’ effectiveness and transparency key when acting as appointee
Families need to have confidence that councils are protecting the interests of their loved ones when acting as financial appointees, the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) has said.
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: 24 004 836
Category: Education
Sub Category: School exclusions
- The Council will share with the Ombudsman an update on its proposed service improvements relating to reviewing its process to ensure annual reviews are actioned, appropriate record keeping is maintained, staff training on the statutory process from Education, Health and Care plans, managing expectations of parents around full-time alternative provision, and a new policy for children being accompanied to alternative provision.
- The Council will remind its complaints handling staff to adhere to the timescales set out in the Council’s Corporate Complaints Policy, and in circumstances where responses are delayed, complainants should be informed and new reasonable timescales should be provided.
Case reference: 24 011 076
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Homelessness
- The Council has agreed to provide refresher training for all housing case officers on how to correctly handle cases where officers are relying on the legislation for deliberate and unreasonable refusal to co-operate. Before the training, the Council has agreed to send out a reminder to all housing staff on the importance of sending and recording decisions at the time of case closure.
Case reference: 23 013 297
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council has agreed to review its policy for checking Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan provision and ensure it has systems in place to check the special educational provision is in place when a new or substantially different EHC plan is issued, when there is a new placement and when concerns are raised. The Council will then make any relevant improvements to its policy and send it to all relevant staff in the education department and ensure the improvements are implemented.
Case reference: 23 008 536
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Safeguarding
- Write to care provider acting on the Council’s behalf to remind staff of the importance of correctly following instructions for administering medication and keeping accurate records.
Case reference: 23 000 632
Category: Environment and regulation
Sub Category: Cemeteries and crematoria
- The Council will establish a policy for the transfer of burial rights which reflects the current guidance available. It should share this policy with all parties responsible for the allocation of burial rights within the Council.
Case reference: 22 005 218
Category: Education
Sub Category: School transport
- The Council will provide training or guidance to all relevant staff and transport appeal panel members about when a school named in an Education, Health and Care Plan is considered to be the nearestsuitable school for transport purposes, in line with statutory guidance and relevant case law.
- The Council has agreed to carry out a review to identify cases where it has wrongly refused to award school transport to pupils with an Education Health and Care Plan naming the parental preference school as the only named school without any condition requiring the parent to provide transport. It will offer transport to those pupils and reimburse any expenses the parents incurred in providing transport.
Case reference: 20 013 224
Category: Planning
Sub Category: Planning applications
- The Council was at fault for having a partly illegible planning document on its website. It will correct its records by uploading a legible copy of the planning document (an applicant's ground condition report) to its website.
- The Council will investigate how it keeps its planning records to prevent the recurrence of a partly illegible planning document being uploaded onto its website.
Case reference: 20 010 290
Category: Education
Sub Category: COVID-19
- The Council will review its procedures for carrying out interim/emergency reviews of Education, Health and Care Plans to ensure it completes the process in line with the Special Educational Needs Code of Practice. It should pay particular attention to the point of transfer between phases of education.
Last updated: 4 April 2015