Formal complaints to Cheshire West and Chester Council rose 86% to 312 in 2025-26, and two in three were upheld. SEND and school transport drew the most.
Formal complaints to Cheshire West and Chester Council rose by 86% in the year to March 2026, to 312. Two in three of them were upheld in full or in part.
The figures are in the council’s draft Corporate Customer Contact Annual Report 2025-26. It goes to the council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee on Monday 9 November, which is asked to endorse it for publication.
The rise came while overall contact fell. The council logged 2,407 contacts through its complaints channels, 5% fewer than the year before. It says 87% were sorted out before they became a formal complaint.
The headline numbers
| 2024-25 | 2025-26 | |
|---|---|---|
| Stage 1 complaints | 168 | 312 |
| Stage 1 upheld in full or in part | 48% | 67% |
| Stage 1 answered within 20 working days | 60% | 72% |
| Stage 2 complaints | 72 | 133 |
| Stage 2 upheld in full or in part | 64% | 53% |
| Stage 2 answered within 40 working days | 81% | 89% |
A Stage 2 complaint is one where the person was unhappy with the first answer and asked for a second review.
Response times improved, but they are still well short of the council’s own targets. Those targets are 99% on time at Stage 1 and 98% at Stage 2. The report notes they were kept “despite decreasing compliance over the past 2 years”.
SEND and school transport drew the most complaints
More than a third of formal complaints were about one service.
The report says many of the 119 education complaints were about:
- Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs), including assessments and changes to plans
- children without suitable education, or waiting for a school or specialist place
- support named in EHCPs not being delivered
- SEND transport
- poor communication or case handling
It says the timeliness of EHCP assessments “remains an area of focus”.
Other services had their own themes:
- Planning (28): most formal complaints were about enforcement
- Council Tax (26): recovery action and processing delays, which the report puts down to backlogs, absence and staff turnover. It says recruitment is now complete.
Waste and Recycling had the most contact of any service, at 666, but only 23 of those became formal complaints.
What the Ombudsman found
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman received 109 complaints about the council in 2025-26, up 30%. It decided 80.
- it investigated 17 and upheld 16
- the council complied with all of the Ombudsman’s recommendations
- 75% of remedies were carried out on time
- financial remedies totalled £10,294, down from £20,467
The report says the council “compares favourably” with its neighbours. On upheld decisions per 100,000 residents, its figure of 4.3 compares with 7.8 for Cheshire East, 7.3 for Wirral, 4.6 for Halton and 3.7 for Liverpool.
The Ombudsman published no public reports about the council in 2025-26, or in the last 10 years, according to the report.
Compliments rose too
The council recorded 785 compliments, up from 299. It says that is partly because it has pushed services to log the compliments they receive.
What it means for you
If you have a complaint about a council service, it goes to the council first. You can take it to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman once the council’s process is finished.
The Ombudsman’s new Complaint Handling Code sets shorter deadlines than the council used in 2025-26. Under it, a Stage 1 complaint should be answered within 10 working days of being acknowledged, or up to 20 if it is complex. The council says it is moving to the code in full.
The committee meets at 6pm on Monday. The council webcasts its meetings, so you can watch the discussion live or afterwards.
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