Complaints to the council rose from 43 to 69 in a year, and 37 were about council tax and benefits. The Ombudsman upheld none of the 19 it decided.
West Suffolk Council received 69 formal complaints in 2025-26. That is up from 43 the year before, a rise of 60%, and nearly double the 36 it logged in 2023-24.
The figures are in a report going to the council’s Performance and Audit Scrutiny Committee on Thursday 24 September. Councillors are asked only to note it, so there is no decision to wait for. The numbers are the story (report PAS/WS/26/019).
Most complaints went nowhere. Of the 69, 54 were not upheld and one was withdrawn, leaving 11 upheld and three partially upheld. The council says the majority are cases where someone is unhappy with an outcome, such as a planning decision, an enforcement action or a council tax bill, “but due process and policy has been followed and the Council is not at fault”.
More than half were about council tax and benefits
The single biggest source is not a council department at all. 37 of the 69 complaints related to the Anglia Revenues Partnership, the shared organisation that runs council tax, business rates and benefits for West Suffolk. Twenty-eight of those 37, or 75%, were not upheld.
Complaints by directorate, at the first stage of the council’s process:
| Directorate | Upheld | Partly upheld | Not upheld | Withdrawn | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chief Operating Officer (including revenues and benefits) | 9 | 1 | 30 | 0 | 40 |
| Housing, Communities and Regulation | 1 | 0 | 10 | 1 | 12 |
| Planning and Growth | 0 | 0 | 9 | 0 | 9 |
| Operations, Leisure and Culture | 1 | 2 | 5 | 0 | 8 |
| Total | 11 | 3 | 54 | 1 | 69 |
Planning drew nine complaints and did not have a single one upheld. It also recorded 55 compliments, more than any other part of the council. Total compliments came to 110, up from 104 the year before, with Operations, Leisure and Culture on 45.
The council attributes the increase mainly to housing and to revenues and benefits, and says upheld complaints have led to changes in administrative process, extra staff training and amendments to its own guidance.
The second stage, and the Freedom of Information problem
Complainants who are unhappy with the first response can ask for a review. West Suffolk investigated 18 of these second-stage complaints, up from 10 the year before, with a further four withdrawn.
Seven of the 22 went straight to the second stage without a first-stage response, and all seven were appeals about Freedom of Information or subject access requests. The council says that is now the majority of its second-stage caseload, and has started reporting those separately because the requests often do not belong to any one department.
Of the 18 investigated, one was upheld, 13 were partially upheld and three were not. One received an explanation rather than a finding.
What went to the Ombudsman, and what it was about
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman received 18 new complaints about West Suffolk Council between 1 April 2025 and 31 March 2026, according to its own case list. Housing allocations account for seven of them on its own.
Three of the 18 were about refuse and recycling, one of them logged on 30 March 2026, right at the end of the year covered.
The Ombudsman upheld nothing, but it investigated almost nothing either
The council’s report says the Ombudsman “did not uphold any complaint in 2025-2026”. That is correct, and it is worth setting out what sits behind it.
The Ombudsman decided 19 cases about West Suffolk in the year, six of which had been received the year before. Its decisions were:
- 11 closed after initial enquiries. The Ombudsman assessed the complaint and decided not to investigate, for reasons including “not warranted by alleged fault”, a right of appeal to a minister or tribunal, and another agency being better placed.
- Seven referred back for local resolution. These came to the Ombudsman too early, before the council had been given a chance to deal with them.
- One not upheld. A planning enforcement case, decided on 18 July 2025, where the Ombudsman completed an investigation and found no fault.
So the Ombudsman carried exactly one investigation about this council through to a conclusion all year. No Public Interest Report was issued, which is the point at which the Monitoring Officer would have to report to full council.
One small discrepancy worth noting for anyone reading the papers. The council’s report heads its table of 19 cases “Number Received”. The Ombudsman’s own data shows 18 complaints received in the year and 19 decided. The 19 is the decided figure, and five of the complaints received in 2025-26 had no decision recorded when the Ombudsman drew its data on 7 April 2026.
The national picture, in the Ombudsman’s words
The rise in complaints is not a West Suffolk story alone. The Ombudsman’s caseload grew 16% last year and 33% this year, which the council’s report describes as more sharply than at any point in the past decade.
The report quotes the Ombudsman’s assessment directly: the increase “is not concentrated in one area, it is consistent across all services”, and reflects “a broader crisis of public confidence in public services”, with special educational needs, housing and adult social care showing “the consequences of systems under sustained and serious strain”.
What it means for you
- If you want to complain about the council, it now has to answer faster. From 1 April 2026 the council must decide a first-stage complaint within 10 working days, halved from 20. That change came from the Ombudsman’s new Complaint Handling Code.
- Go through the council first. Seven of the 19 Ombudsman decisions were sent straight back because the complaint arrived before the council had been given a chance to resolve it. The Ombudsman calls these premature.
- Two steps, then the Ombudsman. Step one is a reply from the relevant director, head of service or service manager. Step two is a review by the head of governance and the legal service, and it is only available if you have new information.
- A refused Freedom of Information request follows the same route. Those reviews go straight to step two, and they are now most of that caseload.
- The odds are against you at the Ombudsman. Of 19 decisions last year, one reached a full investigation.
If your complaint is about a missed bin, start with the collection calendar on our Bury St Edmunds bin collection days page. If it is about a council tax band, see Bury St Edmunds council tax bands. Planning complaints are a different route again, and our Bury St Edmunds planning news page tracks what is in front of the council.
Sources
Complaints and Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman Annual Report 2025-2026 (report number PAS/WS/26/019), to West Suffolk Council’s Performance and Audit Scrutiny Committee on 24 September 2026, with the Ombudsman’s annual review letter and case data as Appendices 1a and 1b. The committee agenda carries the full papers. Counts by subject in the chart were compiled by The Bury St Edmunds Post from the Ombudsman’s case list.
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