Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council
Complaint overview
Between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we dealt with 35 complaints. Of these, 16 were not for us or not ready for us to investigate. We assessed and closed 14 complaints. We investigated 5 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 5 complaints and upheld 4.
80% of complaints we investigated were upheld.
This compares to an average of 66% in similar authorities.
View upheld decisionsAdjusted for Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council's population, this is 3.3 upheld decisions per 100,000 residents.
The average for authorities of this type is
1.1 upheld decisions per 100,000 residents. -
Satisfactory remedies provided by the Council
In 1 out of 4 upheld cases we found the Council had provided a satisfactory remedy before the complaint reached the Ombudsman.
25% satisfactory remedy rate.
This compares to an average of 15% 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 Welwyn Hatfield 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.
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: 24 016 673
Category: Benefits and tax
Sub Category: Council tax
- ensure staff are reminded to check for outstanding costs when closing a liability; and
- ensure that accounts are not passed to enforcement agents where liability has ended, unless a manual check confirms the balance is still due.
Case reference: 24 003 301
Category: Environment and regulation
Sub Category: Refuse and recycling
- Review its processes for escalating cases that breech agreed timescales.
- Review its processes for proactively communicating with customers in cases of delay.
Case reference: 23 012 811
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Allocations
- The Council has agreed to remind officers who attend the Exceptional Circumstances Panel that its records should contain sufficient detail of the discussion to demonstrate the matters it considered as well as its decision.
Case reference: 23 008 180
Category: Environment and regulation
Sub Category: Refuse and recycling
- The Council agreed to send a written reminder to relevant staff about the need to clarify and address conflicting information provided by residents and its contractor about missed bin collections. The aim being to avoid missing opportunities to resolve bin collection problems as quickly as possible.
Case reference: 23 004 501
Category: Environment and regulation
Sub Category: Refuse and recycling
- monitor the collections from the communal bins at Mr X’s block of flats for the next two months;
- keep records of this monitoring, including the condition of the communal bins and bin store before and after collections and any actions taken to address identified issues or in response to residents’ reports of issues; and
- provide us with its monitoring records after this exercise.
Case reference: 22 011 681
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Allocations
- The Council has agreed to remind relevant staff that anyone can apply to join the Council’s housing register, it should not prevent people exercising this right and should provide them details of how to apply if asked.
- The Council has agreed to remind relevant staff of the requirement in the Council’s aids and adaptations policy to carry out a feasibility assessment for all complex adaptations, and give guidance on when this should include a visit to the property.
Case reference: 22 004 512
Category: Benefits and tax
Sub Category: Housing benefit and council tax benefit
- The Council will review how it can better screen Housing Benefit applications to inform ineligible application to apply to the DWP for support with housing costs. This is to limit unnecessary delays in circumstances where the Council cannot meet its targeted timescales for processing Housing Benefit applications.
Case reference: 21 004 850
Category: Planning
Sub Category: Other
- The Council agreed to continue with discussions and negotiations with the freeholder for a further three months about actions it can take which would allow the Council to discharge the condition. In the next three months it will then consider whether it has enough evidence to take enforcement action or discharge the condition. The Council should provide regular updates (once every two months) as to how matters are progressing. This decision on what action the Council should take should be made by its Executive Director (Place) and the Assistant Director(Planning).
- The Council agreed it will contact all those it identified as a group who are, or have likely to have been, similarly affected, and advise them of the issues and actions the Council intends to take. It will invite them to complain to the Council if not satisfied.
Last updated: 4 April 2015