Complaints about public services, councils and behaviour of local councillors has risen by 37 per cent since 2019, the latest annual report by the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales shows.

The Ombudsman for Wales Michelle Morris published the office’s Annual Report & Accounts for 2023/24 earlier this month which shows that 1,110 complaints were made about local councils in Wales, a 28 per cent increase over the last five years.

Complaints about health boards and housing associations rose by 31 per cent and 47 per cent respectively.

During 2023/24, the Ombudsman received 518 Code of Conduct complaints against town, community and county councillors in Wales - a 16 per cent increase on last year.

A report outlined that 54 per cent of new complaints were made against councillors at Town and Community Councils and 55 per cent 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 2023/24, the Ombudsman made 21 such referrals - Standards Committees and the Adjudication Panel for Wales upheld and found breaches in 85 per cent of the Ombudsman’s referrals they considered in 2023/24.

The report added: “The Ombudsman has an important role to drive public services improvement.

“In 2023/24, the Ombudsman’s office continued its important work to introduce complaints handling standards to public bodies in Wales.

“56 public bodies across Wales now comply with the Complaints Standards set out by the Ombudsman, including 23 housing associations and all local authorities and health boards in Wales.

“The office has provided 500 training sessions since 2020, reaching about 10,000 staff at public bodies in Wales.”

Michelle Morris said: “This annual report reflects the first year since I published my Strategic Plan 2023-26 ‘A New Chapter’.

“I am pleased to see that we have made good progress towards achieving the ambitious goals set out in the Strategic Plan.

“2023/24 has been our most efficient year – we dealt with more complaints than ever before, reduced the costs for each case and investigation and also successfully reduced our aging cases.

“Our investigation and support staff dug deep to meet this target.

“We have helped more people and have made a significant contribution towards improving public services in Wales.”