Almost half of complaints to council were upheld last year, an improvement on previous years

The council complaints watchdog The Ombudsman have found that 48% of complaints to Salford City Council were up held in 2021/2022.

The rate is 20% higher than the national average at 68%, highlighting a council subjected to less serious issues compared to the rest of the nation.

This comes after three years of having more complaints upheld than the national average.

Such complaints include the council paying out £250 to one man for “distress caused by the poor service he received” after being “twice pursued for outstanding council tax owed debt owed by someone with the same name, even though it said it had removed him from the case after the first occasion.”

Elsewhere one other complaint detailed how she “had to give up work and has been trying to educate her child herself” due to the “Council failing to provide the special educational provision for her daughter, as set out in her Education, Health and Care plan, for two years. She says this has impacted on her and her daughter’s health.”

One of the most serious of complaints involved a “Nursing Home failing to provide adequate care to her father in the hours prior to his death and that the Council’s safeguarding investigation was flawed”

The complaint added: “The Council has already identified fault, mainly around communication with the family and the Nursing Home’s recording of events. It has apologised and made service improvements.

Elsewhere, The Ombudsman noted that in 100% of cases they were satisfied the Council had successfully implemented our recommendations, equal to the national average.

Furthermore, in 30% of upheld cases the organisation found the Council had provided a satisfactory remedy before the complaint reached the Ombudsman, an improvement on recent years and 19% above the national average.