Dozens of complaints were made to the ombudsman about Swindon Borough Council in the last year, new figures show. 

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman is responsible for investigating wrongdoing in local public services.

If it finds that the council has acted in an unfair or unjust way, the ombudsman will offer recommendations on how to make things right.

According to figures from the body, there were 56 complaints or enquiries made about Swindon Borough Council in the year to March – up from 41 the year before.

After an investigation, the ombudsman found the council to have acted unjustly on eight occasions last year.

The most common reasons for coming to the ombudsman in Swindon were for issues related to education and children's services, or highways and transport, with 11 complaints or enquiries each.

David Renard, leader of the council, has acknowledged that all the recommendations for the upheld complaints had been put in place but that the authority ‘clearly has some work to do.’

Despite this, Swindon Borough Council is performing well when compared to neighbouring councils in terms of the number of complaints received per 100,000 of the population.

It received 11.11 complaints per 100,000 of the population whereas Wiltshire Council had 36.34, Bristol City Council had 49.84, Plymouth City Council had 18.67 and Bath and NE Somerset Council had 16.81.

Michael King, Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, said: "One complaint can have immense power to change things for the better.

“The vast majority of councils agree to the recommendations we make and see them as common-sense ways of providing better services for people in their area."

Councillor Renard said: “We always do our best to resolve complaints wherever possible, but sometimes we are unable to provide a satisfactory resolution and a small number of grievances are passed on.

“The Ombudsman is satisfied we have implemented all of the recommendations for each of the eight upheld cases that were investigated, but we clearly have some work to do to ensure we complete all investigations and implement any remedies in a more timely fashion.

"This is something we have already begun to address because we pride ourselves on providing the best possible services to our residents.

“Although a relatively small proportion of complaints are passed on to the Local Government Ombudsman for investigation, the vast majority of complaints we received were resolved through our Customer Feedback and Complaints Handling policy."