North Northamptonshire Council
North Northamptonshire Council is a merger of several councils and the historical information for these are located from the following links.
Corby Borough Council
East Northamptonshire Council
Kettering Borough Council
Wellingborough Borough Council
Northamptonshire County Council
Complaint overview
Between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we dealt with 119 complaints. Of these, 54 were not for us or not ready for us to investigate. We assessed and closed 43 complaints. We investigated 22 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 22 complaints and upheld 19.
86% of complaints we investigated were upheld.
This compares to an average of 80% in similar authorities.
View upheld decisionsAdjusted for North Northamptonshire Council's population, this is 5.2 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 1 out of 19 upheld cases we found the Council had provided a satisfactory remedy before the complaint reached the Ombudsman.
5% 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 18 cases.
In 17 cases we were satisfied with the actions taken.94% 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 North Northamptonshire 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.
No reports published
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: 23 020 479
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Allocations
- The Council agreed tio share this case with its homelessness and allocations officers to emphasise the importance of examining the evidence submitted promptly and making timely decisions.
Case reference: 24 014 934
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- the Council has agreed to complete a review of why there were delays in carrying out the agreed on service improvement recommendations and advise what actions it intends to take to prevent future reoccurrences.
Case reference: 23 019 041
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Safeguarding
- The Council has agreed to remind its Quality Monitoring Team to follow up with service users to assure itself that that issues with care providers have been resolved following monitoring visits.
Case reference: 23 018 564
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council will remind relevant special educational needs staff of the actions the Council should take in line with Section 15 Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014, when a child with an Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan transfers into its area. The Council will ensure staff are aware it should secure the special educational provision for the child before it reviews or issues an amended EHC Plan.
Case reference: 23 017 202
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council will provide us with a written update on the progress of its new draft Move In Policy for Young People.
Case reference: 23 013 542
Category: Environment and regulation
Sub Category: Pollution
- The Council will remind relevant staff of its enforcement policy and joint working requirements.
- The Council will provide the Ombudsman with evidence of the actions it is now taking to address delays at its stage 1 and stage 2 complaints process, to ensure it responds within its published timescales and names the officer responding to the complaint.
Case reference: 23 009 712
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Homelessness
- The Council has agreed to reviews its homelessness service and makes changes to ensure:a.all staff are aware of the Council’s legal duties and the timescales for taking specific actions;b.proper records are kept of the actions taken, and the rationale for that action;c.written decisions are sent to applicants at the correct address at each stage with a formal right of review;d.there is a robust monitoring system to identify delays promptly and take action to rectify them.
- The Council has agreed to review its complaint-handling service and makes changes to ensure:a.responses are sent within the Council’s published timescales;b.that complaints referred from our office are dealt with promptly; and c.any promised actions to remedy identified injustice are implemented within a reasonable period of time.
Case reference: 23 009 139
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council will review its procedures to ensure cases do not get lost between the home education/inclusion and Education Health and Care teams.
Case reference: 23 006 332
Category: Education
Sub Category: Alternative provision
- The Council agreed to review its complaint handling processes, and issue reminders to staff who handle complaints, to ensure it:responds to complaints within the timescales set out in its complaints procedure; andproperly completes any actions it agrees to when it upholds a complaint, in good time.
Case reference: 23 006 293
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- Review its record keeping policies and provide guidance and training tostaff about the importance of accurate record keeping including recordingdetails to support its rationale behind its decision making
Last updated: 4 April 2015