Ashford Borough Council
Complaint overview
Between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we dealt with 18 complaints. Of these, 6 were not for us or not ready for us to investigate. We assessed and closed 12 complaints. We investigated 0 complaints.
More about this data
Complaints dealt with – the total number of complaints and enquiries considered. It is not appropriate to investigate all of them.
Not for us – includes complaints brought to us before the council was given chance to consider it, or the complainant came to the wrong Ombudsman.
Assessed and closed – includes complaints where the law says we’re not allowed to investigate, or it would be a poor use of public funds if we did.
Investigated – we completed an investigation and made a decision on whether we found fault, or no fault.
Complaints upheld – we completed an investigation and found evidence of fault, or the organisation provided a suitable remedy early on.
Satisfactory remedies provided by the Council – the council upheld the complaint and we agreed with how it offered to put things right.
Compliance with Ombudsman recommendations – not complying with our recommendations is rare. A council with a compliance rate below 100% should scrutinise the complaints where it failed to comply and identify any learning.
Average performance rates – we compare the annual statistics of similar types of councils to work out an average level of performance. We do this for County Councils, District Councils, Metropolitan Boroughs, Unitary Councils, and London Boroughs.
For more information on understanding our statistics see Interpreting our complaints data.
Complaints dealt with
Not for us
Assessed and closed
Investigated
-
Complaints upheld
The Ombudsman carried out no investigations in this period
-
Satisfactory remedies provided by the Council
The Ombudsman did not uphold any complaints in this period
-
Compliance with Ombudsman recommendations
No recommendations were due for compliance in this period
Annual letters
We write to councils each year to give a summary of the complaint statistics we record about them,
and their performance in responding to our investigations.
Reports
The Ombudsman has published the following reports against Ashford Borough Council
Find out more about reports
We issue reports on certain investigations, particularly where there is a wider public interest to do so. Common reasons for reports are significant injustice, systemic issues, major learning points and non-compliance with our recommendations. Issuing reports is one way we help to ensure councils are accountable to local people and highlighting the learning from complaints helps to improve services for everybody. Reports are published for 10 years.
No reports published
Service improvements
The Council has agreed to make the following improvements to its services following an Ombudsman investigation.
Find out more about service improvements
When we find fault, we can recommend improvements to systems and processes where they haven’t worked properly, so that others do not suffer from these same problems in future. Common examples are policy changes; procedural reviews; and staff training. Service improvements from decisions are published for 5 years and those from reports are published for 10 years.
The latest 10 cases are listed below – click ‘view all’ to find all service improvements.
Case reference: 24 014 106
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Homelessness
- •Remind relevant staff to inform applicants about their appeal rights when offering accommodation.
Case reference: 23 003 079
Category: Environment and regulation
Sub Category: Antisocial behaviour
- Share this decision, and the Ombudsman’s focus report ‘Out of Order: learning lessons from complaints about antisocial behaviour’ with relevant staff.
- Review its policies on Antisocial Behaviour (ASB) and the ASB case review, as well as the information published online, to make sure these accord with each other and with the law and statutory guidance, (particularly with regard to the threshold for the ASB case review and how these are conducted, and with regard to how the Council considers its powers fully).
- Share the new policy and published information with staff so that they are clear on the Council’s responsibilities and processes.
Case reference: 23 000 890
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Homelessness
- The Council has agreed to remind relevant staff to ask applicants to the housing register for supporting evidence if this is necessary to assess their priority properly.
- The Council has agreed to ensure all homeless applicants who tell the Council about experiences of domestic abuse are given the option to meet with an officer of the same sex.
- The Council has agreed to remind relevant staff that a valid notice seeking possession of a private tenancy should not automatically lead the Council to accept a prevention duty where other circumstances, including domestic abuse, indicate the applicant is homeless and owed the relief duty.
- The Council has agreed to remind relevant staff, with training or guidance as needed, that Personalised Housing Plans should:a. be provided to applicants owed a duty as soon as possible after assessment; b. be kept under review; andc. contain meaningful steps for both the Council and the applicant to take.
Last updated: 4 April 2015