Complaints to Public Services Ombudsman for Wales jump 43% in single year to record levels
Complaints to the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales have seen a 43% increase since 2019, with complaints involving councils rising by 54% in that time.
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Writing in its Annual Report & Accounts report for 2024-25, the service said "more people than ever" are approaching the Ombudsman to complain about public services in Wales.
During 2024-25, the Ombudsman received 1,337 complaints about local councils, a 54% increase since 2019-20, according to the reports.
Complaints about housing associations meanwhile numbered 411, a 103% increase since 2010-20.
The report also revealed that 949 complaints concerning health boards had been submitted last year, a 26% increase on numbers recorded in 2019-20.
The Ombudsman found that something had gone wrong and intervened in 18% of complaints about public services closed during the year, compared to 20% the year before. Almost 9 out of 10 times, the Ombudsman intervened by proposing Early Resolution to deliver justice quickly, without the need for a full investigation.
Organisations complied with 94% of the Ombudsman's recommendations during the year, but a lower proportion of recommendations were complied with in time with the target date agreed, the report added.
Elsewhere, the Ombudsman said it received 315 code of conduct complaints that the office could consider last year, a small reduction (4%) from last year, but 36% more than in 2019-20.
Almost two-thirds of the code of conduct complaints 60% were made against councillors at town and community councils, and 56% were about how councillors promoted equality and respect.
The office does not make final findings about breaches of the Code of Conduct. Instead, where investigations find the most serious concerns, these are referred to the standards committee of the relevant local authority, or the Adjudication Panel for Wales.
In 2024-25, the Ombudsman made 15 such referrals. The standards committees and the Adjudication Panel for Wales upheld and found breaches in 85% of the Ombudsman's referrals they considered.
In her foreword to the report, the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales, Michelle Morris, said the service had to intervene early in more cases in order to manage the increase.
The report also highlighted an incident earlier in the year in which a member of staff who had been the Team Leader of the Ombudsman's Code of Conduct Team had made "inappropriate and unacceptable social media posts of a political nature".
In response, the watchdog appointed Dr Melissa McCullough (Standards Commissioner for the Northern Ireland Assembly and for the Jersey & Guernsey States Assemblies) to undertake an independent review of its handling of its Code of Conduct complaints.
The review ultimately found that the Ombudsman's code of conduct processes were "appropriate, fair, impartial, and free from political bias".
However, the report also included recommendations calling on the Ombudsman to "augment the existing safeguards for ensuring the fairness and impartiality of the processes and would clarify the related guidance as applicable."
The Welsh Senedd's Finance Committee later published the findings of its own review on the Ombudsman, which made further recommendations.
The Ombudsman has since accepted the recommendations in full. It said that it had "delivered the actions against all recommendations and lessons learnt within the agreed time frame and by the end of March 2025".
Morris said: "We knew that the social media incident had the potential to damage public confidence in our office.
"Therefore, we were especially glad to see that, according to our national awareness survey, confidence in our office is at the highest level ever. We are grateful for the trust placed in us by the Welsh public."
She later added: "There is more work to be done. The continuing increase in complaints remains one of the biggest challenges facing our office. Despite increased outreach and communications activity, we have struggled to diversify the profile of people who use our service.
"Also, although our process is fully bilingual, very few people opt to complain to us in Welsh."
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