Watchdog probed 14 disputes involving Wigan Council

The statistics for the 2019-20 financial year show Wigan has a fairly low level of errors crossing the ombudsman’s desk, with 29 per cent of complaints being upheld compared to an average of 67 per cent for similar town halls.

Cases which were upheld included the council paying a woman for not taking enough action gainst anti-social behaviour by her neighbours, a young man having to be driven to college by his mother because a transport request had been poorly handled, and delays in acting against someone running a business from their home.

Not all ombudsman decisions are published due to confidentiality.

However, Wigan Council’s responses to complaints before the ombudsman got involved were less impressive.

The LGO found that in no cases did the town hall manage to come up with a satisfactory remedy the ombudsman could then agree with.

This compares to an average of 11 per cent for similar authorities where the council managed to put things right before the LGO got involved.

Lesley O’Halloran, assistant director of customer services and culture at Wigan Council, said: “We strive to provide the most efficient, value for money services to local residents.

“We welcome constructive criticism and feedback to help us improve services.

“We take all complaints very seriously and will always seek fair and transparent resolutions in a timely manner.”

The LGO said that nationally it is seeing more systemic problems in dealing with complaints, leading it to issue more wider service improvement recommendations in 2019-20 than ever

before.

The proportion of complaints upheld has also risen from the year before.

The North West accounted for 12 per cent of all complaints made about councils.

The most common topic for complaints is children and education, which also has the highest rate of criticisms being upheld.

Michael King, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, said complaints were important to prevent problems from reoccurring and to improve services for other people.