Gravesham Borough Council
Complaint overview
Between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we dealt with 20 complaints. Of these, 10 were not for us or not ready for us to investigate. We assessed and closed 10 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 Gravesham 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: 23 001 386
Category: Environment and regulation
Sub Category: Antisocial behaviour
- The Council will produce new staff guidance for anti-social behaviour cases.
Case reference: 21 017 774
Category: Planning
Sub Category: Enforcement
- Ensure that staff are reminded of the importance of adhering to timescales when responding to a complaint and where delays occur complainants are kept informed.
- Provide the Ombudsman with a copy of its revised procedure for handling complaints about noise nuisance, specifically addressing the technical issue highlighted with Council B
Case reference: 21 011 626
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Allocations
- The Council will ensure its staff who deal with members of the public are aware of the Council's duties under the Equality Act 2010. The Council has agreed to circulate a reminder to all relevant staff about ensuring people are routinely asked or prompted about any reasonable adjustments.
Last updated: 4 April 2015