Southampton City Council
Complaint overview
Between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we dealt with 70 complaints. Of these, 33 were not for us or not ready for us to investigate. We assessed and closed 26 complaints. We investigated 11 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 11 complaints and upheld 8.
73% of complaints we investigated were upheld.
This compares to an average of 80% in similar authorities.
View upheld decisionsAdjusted for Southampton City Council's population, this is 3.1 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 8 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 7 cases.
In 7 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 Southampton City 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: 24 001 037
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Other
- Remind relevant officer of their duties in contacting family members and responding officers, which are set out in the call handling manual.
Case reference: 24 000 074
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Assessment and care plan
- The Council has agreed to remind officers of the need to send people copies of their assessments and care and support plans, so they can make informed decisions about their care.
Case reference: 23 017 741
Category: Children's care services
Sub Category: Friends and family carers
- The Council agreed to create a comprehensive procedure note for the process the Council should follow and the level of evidence the Council should keep when dealing with Special Guardian Home Improvement Loans.
Case reference: 23 014 153
Category: Children's care services
Sub Category: Friends and family carers
- The Council has agreed to review what its private fostering policy says on parental consent to ensure it is satisfied with what the policy says.
- The Council has agreed to send us an action plan which sets out how it will avoid similar failings in future. This plan will address the delays to the initial private fostering visit and the support plan, and the Council’s failure to take safeguarding action.
Case reference: 23 006 826
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Allocations
- The Council will review its guidance and training for officers on record keeping around the analysis of noise recordings and on ensuring it has proper regard to its ASB powers when it receives complaints.
Case reference: 23 000 028
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council has agreed to produce an action plan which sets out how the Council will ensure that delays to the delivery of children's social care support are not repeated in future.
Case reference: 22 011 043
Category: Other Categories
Sub Category: Leisure and culture
- The Council should consider its policy on banning people from allotments. It should ensure that it has a written policy. This should contain guidance on how it will inform people of the terms of any ban imposed on them, the length of the ban, the reasons for ban and provide a right of appeal. It should also ensure the policy has a procedure in place for reviewing the ban after a fixed time frame to check whether the ban should remain in place.
Case reference: 22 007 813
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council will ensure it has a process in place for checking provision specified in an EHC plan is arranged from the start of a new or amended plan. It should ensure within this process there is a robust system that when an officer responsible for the provision leaves their position or goes on sick leave, their work is passed to another officer to progress.
Case reference: 22 006 453
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Transport
- Provide evidence of the additional guidance and training to staff on how to assess disabled persons’ concession applications
- Provide confirmation the Council has contacted previous applicants who were declined exemption on similar grounds to encourage them to reapply
- Provide confirmation the Council has amended the wording of the Smartcities card renewal form to reflect the amended wording of the Toll Order
Case reference: 21 012 907
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Allocations
- the Council will review its practice to make sure all decision letters about housing allocations inform the applicant of their right to appeal that decision.
- the Council will review its practice around keeping proper records of housing allocation decision letters it sends.
Last updated: 4 April 2015