A boss at Bracknell Forest Council has admitted to failures and lessons learned as nearly £8,000 has been paid to people who have made complaints.
If a person feels that they have not been dealt with correctly, they have a right to complain.
These complaints are resolved by council officers at stage one, or by a senior manager at stage two of the process.
If a person still feels aggrieved, they can ask the local government and social care ombudsman (LGSO) to investigate their complaint.
The ombudsman can recommend that councils pay compensation to those who have complained.
Over the last year, 11 complaints against Bracknell Forest Council were upheld, with a total of £7,950 being paid out to complainants.
An annual report on LGSO decisions was noted at a meeting of the council’s Labour-run cabinet.
Kevin Gibbs, the council’s executive director for communities, said: “Although there is only 11 complaints, each of those has a story behind it, and the council always looks to see the impact on those individuals to ensure that the decisions we make are reasonable and have their best interests at heart.
“The fact that in these cases we have not met our own high standards is something that we will work on and have worked on with these individuals.
“That said, as a proportion, 11 complaints represents just a subset of the complaints that the council handles over a year and a subset of the hundreds of thousands of transactions that we undertake. So in recognising that these are the cases that we need to learn the most from, we also recognise that in comparison to other unitary authorities, this is a very low number.
“We have been working incredibly hard in improving our management of complaints.”
The council complied with all of the ombudsman’s recommendations in each of the cases.
Mr Gibbs added: “This is part of our process of acknowledging our position in public and making sure that people understand how we manage what is a very complicated set of arrangements, but where we fail, we make it clear why we have failed and then deal with those appropriately.”
Councillor Iksander Jeffries (Labour, Bullbrook), cabinet member for public protection and democracy, said complaints are on a downward trajectory, lower than the 15 complaints upheld in 2023/24, and the lowest since 2021/22, when eight were upheld.
However, the council did have to pay out £13,050 in a complaint about a child missing two years of full-time education.
That complaint, resolved on June 26, fell outside of the period covered in the report by Jen Lawson, head of civic services, which does not mention any payout amounts.
Cllr Megan Wright (Labour, Town Centre & The Parks), cabinet member for adults and public Health, asked whether the complaints identified any emerging risks, particularly relating to special education needs and disabilities (SEN).
Mr Gibbs answered: “Clearly, SEND is an area where we have a lot of focus.
“It is an early indication warning of where we have issues, but it is always a backwards-looking indicator.”
The LGSO decisions report was noted at the cabinet meeting on December 16.
