Dacorum Borough Council
Complaint overview
Between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we dealt with 20 complaints. Of these, 11 were not for us or not ready for us to investigate. We assessed and closed 6 complaints. We investigated 3 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
We investigated 3 complaints and upheld 2.
67% of complaints we investigated were upheld.
This compares to an average of 66% in similar authorities.
View upheld decisionsAdjusted for Dacorum Borough Council's population, this is 1.3 upheld decisions per 100,000 residents.
The average for authorities of this type is
1.1 upheld decisions per 100,000 residents. -
Satisfactory remedies provided by the Council
In 0 out of 2 upheld cases we found the Council had provided a satisfactory remedy before the complaint reached the Ombudsman.
0% satisfactory remedy rate.
This compares to an average of 15% in similar authorities.
-
Compliance with Ombudsman recommendations
We recorded compliance outcomes in 1 cases.
In 1 cases we were satisfied with the actions taken.100% compliance rate with recommendations.
This compares to an average of 100% in similar authorities.
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 Dacorum 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: 23 018 355
Category: Environment and regulation
Sub Category: Noise
- The Council will remind environmental health officers to follow the Council’s nuisance investigation procedure on site visits, and of the importance of contemporaneous note taking, and giving complainants full and clear reasons for their decisions.
Case reference: 22 003 438
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Allocations
- The Council will carry out a review of the IT system used by its housing allocations service to ensure there are no glitches causing delays in the consideration of medical evidence provided by applicants.
Case reference: 21 006 954
Category: Planning
Sub Category: Other
- b)remind its staff to ensure reasonable complaints and concerns are responded to as set out in the Council’s complaints policy.
Case reference: 21 006 599
Category: Planning
Sub Category: Enforcement
- c)remind its staff to respond to enforcement reports as set out in its Policy, and when it agrees to provide a response; d)remind its enforcement officers to provide realistic estimated timescales of the next steps in its enforcement process, when a request is made to it, as set out in its Policy; e)review the current enforcement cases within the Area and compare these with what have been reported to it. Thereafter, provide Mr B with the timescales for its next steps in the enforcement process. This may any no action, or further action as set out in the Council’s Policy.
Last updated: 4 April 2015