Wiltshire Council
Complaint overview
Between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we dealt with 78 complaints. Of these, 16 were not for us or not ready for us to investigate. We assessed and closed 41 complaints. We investigated 21 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 21 complaints and upheld 18.
86% of complaints we investigated were upheld.
This compares to an average of 80% in similar authorities.
View upheld decisionsAdjusted for Wiltshire Council's population, this is 3.5 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 2 out of 18 upheld cases we found the Council had provided a satisfactory remedy before the complaint reached the Ombudsman.
11% 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 17 cases.
In 17 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 Wiltshire 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.
Councils cannot cap personal budgets under Care Act, Ombudsman warns
Councils cannot set maximum budget levels when calculating the cost of people’s care, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman 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: 23 020 022
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Homelessness
- The Council has agreed it will issue a reminder to relevant staff that ‘reason to believe’ is a low threshold and, if they need to make enquiries about vulnerability, this will usually mean that threshold is met.
Case reference: 23 016 626
Category: Transport and highways
Sub Category: Parking and other penalties
- The Council agreed to provide advice to relevant officers about the decision on this complaint and its implication for future similar cases.
Case reference: 23 016 356
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council will produce an action plan for how it can better monitor, at the earliest opportunity, failings in both delivery of Education, Health and Care Plans and alternative provision. This should include a review of the faults identified in this case.
Case reference: 23 014 340
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council will remind relevant officers and managers of the Council's statutory duties under Section 42 of the Children and Families Act 2014. This will help to ensure that appropriate special needs provision set out in Section F of Education, Health and Care plans is delivered and that officers remember provision is non-delegable and owed personally to the child.
- The Council will remind relevant officers and managers of the Council's statutory duties under Section 19 of the Education Act 1996 related to delivering alternative education provision. This will help to ensure that appropriate alternative education is organised for those affected as soon as possible.
- The Council will consider reviewing its policies and procedures to ensure it retains oversight and control for its Section 19 duties under the Education Act 1996. This will help to ensure the Council itself has full and proper awareness of what education is being delivered to those who should be receiving alternative education provision.
Case reference: 23 011 871
Category: Planning
Sub Category: Enforcement
- The Council will remind all enforcement officers to record details of informal action they take on cases so there is a clear record of what has happened.
Case reference: 23 008 255
Category: Benefits and tax
Sub Category: Local welfare payments
- The Council agreed to ensure it has procedures and guidance in place for officers for: i) choosing firms to provide removal quotes; ii) assessing and deciding which quote to accept; andiii) deciding when to make payments of quotes.
Case reference: 23 008 741
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council has agreed to provide evidence to show the plans it has in place to improve the process for seeking additional time and/or resources for EOTAS [education other than at school] students sitting exams.
- The Council will provide evidence of plans it has in place to improve the process of securing examination centres for EOTAS [education other than at school] students.
Case reference: 23 004 915
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council has agreed to provide training or guidance to staff responsible for dealing with complaints to ensure that where fault has caused injustice, the Council considers what would be a suitable remedy, in line with the Ombudsman’s Guidance on Remedies.
- The Council has agreed to ensure the Council keeps oversight of actions agreed as remedies to complaints until completed.
Case reference: 23 004 319
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- Consider what went wrong in this complaint and look at what measures the Council can put in place to ensure that EHC plans are issued within the statutory timescales following an annual review. The Council should report back to the Ombudsman with its findings and any improvements to its processes it decides to make.
Case reference: 23 001 187
Category: Planning
Sub Category: Planning applications
- By training or other means, share the learning from this complaint with planning officers to ensure they consider all relevant aspects of a planning application and the material considerations raised by an application.
Last updated: 4 April 2015