Dover District Council
Complaint overview
Between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we dealt with 23 complaints. Of these, 8 were not for us or not ready for us to investigate. We assessed and closed 12 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 1.
33% of complaints we investigated were upheld.
This compares to an average of 66% in similar authorities.
View upheld decisionsAdjusted for Dover District Council's population, this is 0.8% 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 1 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.
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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 Dover District 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: 24 001 693
Category: Planning
Sub Category: Other
- The Council failed to keep records of its decision relating to a section 106 agreement. Because of this, there was no evidence to explain why the agreement was not enforced. To avoid recurrence of the fault, the Council has agreed to:carry out a review of its record keeping and section 106 monitoring functions for non-financial obligations, to ensure they are effective and fit for purpose. share the outcome of its review with any changes to practice and procedure with the Council’s Oversight and Scrutiny Committee.
Case reference: 23 007 377
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Homelessness
- The Council should send written reminders to all relevant staff to ensure all offers of accommodation to applicants owed a homelessness duty clearly explain the duty under which the property is offered, and any consequences of accepting or refusing it.
Case reference: 22 009 623
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Allocations
- The Council has agreed to share the Ombudsman’s guidance on good administrative practice with officers who deal with medical assessments. This will help to ensure the assessments are carried out more quickly in future.
- The Council has agreed to propose time periods to help manage people's expectations when submitting medical information for assessment. This will help to ensure people understand the length of time they may wait to have their case assessed.
Case reference: 22 005 335
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Allocations
- Add clarification to section 5.8 of the Council's Housing Allocation Scheme on all types of properties which are restricted to certain groups.
Case reference: 20 011 881
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Homelessness
- arrange refresher training for officers in the Housing Options service to ensure they understand the statutory time limits and apply this in practice when handling review requests.
Last updated: 4 April 2015