Complaints against Swindon Borough Council are taken very seriously, according to the authority's leader David Renard.

He spoke out following criticisms over seven complaints, particularly the time taken to respond and said senior staff will be taking a more active role.

Coun Renard was presenting to his Conservative cabinet colleagues the final report of the Ombudsman on Swindon for 2019-20.

It showed that 58 complaints had been made to the watchdog, with seven being upheld.

That compares well with other nearby, or similar council’s according to Coun Renard’s report.

It means there were 3.15 valid complaints per 100,000 head of population.

That compared to 3.9 upheld complaints per 100,000 for Wiltshire Council, 4.3 for Bristol, 4.58 at Plymouth and 3.1 per 100,000 for Bath and North East Somerset.

Of the seven complaints upheld, two were about children’s services, two about adult social care, two were about parking and one about planning permission.

Coun Renard said: “Even though we've done well in comparison there is no room for complacency at all.

He said the main point of the ombudsman’s report was about making sure complaints are dealt with swiftly – both responses to the resident making the complaint and to the ombudsman where complaints have been escalated.

Coun Renard said the council had changed its procedures with complaints.

Instead of them being handled by the different directorates on their own, the corporate management team, which includes chief executive Susie Kemp meet regularly to review complaints and how they are progressed or resolved.

He added: “The CMT will look at complaints to make sure they are being dealt with properly and one time. We want to continue the trend of fewer complaints being upheld.

“We don’t want any complaints in the first place, but we want to make sure if we get any they are not upheld.”

The council’s cabinet member for health Brian Ford said: “We take every complaint very seriously.”