COMPLAINTS lodged against local authorities to the Public Ombudsman for Wales have reached record levels, the latest data has revealed.

The Ombudsman published the Annual Report for 2021/22, which shows “significant increases in the number of new complaints received about public services.”

Whilst there were fewer new complaints about the conduct of local councillors, more investigations of their conduct found serious concerns.

In addition to general enquiries, during 2021/22, the office received 2,726 complaints about public services – 45 per cent more than last year and 22 per cent more than in 2019/20.

In Ceredigion, 52 complaints were received in 2021/22, up 63 per cent from 2020/21.

Gwynedd saw a rise of 30 per cent year-on-year to 39 complaints, while Powys saw a 45 per cent jump to 55 complaints in 2021/22.

Ceredigion council also received the highest intervention rate on complaints in the whole of Wales, with the Ombudsman stepping in on 28 per cent of cases compared to a Wales-wide average of 14 per cent.

Mostly, the Ombudsman intervened by proposing Early Resolution, to deliver justice quickly without the need for a full investigation.

However, 31 per cent of the interventions followed a full investigation - the office upheld or partially upheld 77 per cent of all the investigations that it closed.

The annual report also outlines that during 2021/22, it received 294 complaints on councillor conduct.

More than half of those complaints were about councillors at Town and Community Councils, and just over a half were about how councillors promoted equality and respect.

The Ombudsman referred 20 of those cases to the Standards Committee of the relevant local authority.

2021/22 was the final year of Nick Bennett’s term of office as Ombudsman, a position he held since 2014.

The office welcomed Michelle Morris as Ombudsman from April 2022.

Commenting on the report, Michelle said: “As I start my term as Ombudsman, I would like to pay tribute to Nick Bennett, my predecessor, and to the staff in the office for their hard work in continuing to deliver services through what has undoubtedly been the most challenging couple of years for the public sector in Wales.

“Our public services continue to work under considerable pressure. They have continued to work with us to ensure that we can properly deal with issues when they go wrong and that we all learn lessons from that experience. We will continue to work with them to make sure that they emerge stronger post-pandemic and that service users continue to receive proper redress when things go wrong.”