Friday brief: Ombudsman upholds more than a dozen complaints against former county council

Plus Olympic glory comes to Corby, West Northamptonshire residents asked to have their say on new council’s constitution and an update on our new Levelling Up project

The county council’s former headquarters

The former county council was the Northamptonshire local authority with the most complaints made against it by residents according to the latest data.

Figures released by the Local Government and Social Care ombudsman, for the period from 1 April 2020 and 31 March 2021 show that 23 complaints were made against the former authority, which at the time was under the stewardship of government appointed commissioners. Sixty five percent of the complaints were upheld including where the authority had failed to consider special educational needs, delayed in providing assessment and care plans to those who need them, and wrongly refused a school transport application for a young disabled person.

There were 38 complaints made in total against the eight former councils which serviced Northamptonshire before the unitary reorganisation, and 26 were upheld.

Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman Michael King said: “While the way local authorities dealt with…