Reigate & Banstead Borough Council
Complaint overview
Between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we dealt with 10 complaints. Of these, 4 were not for us or not ready for us to investigate. We assessed and closed 6 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 Reigate & Banstead 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: 22 011 858
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Allocations
- The Council has agreed within three months of the date of my final decision, to:• review its procedures for dealing with reviews about housing allocation decisions to ensure review decisions are accurate, contain reasons and provide a right of review where appropriate; and • remind staff that when information is received indicating a change of circumstance that further enquiries should be made of the applicant to ensure full information about their situation is obtained.
Case reference: 21 017 813
Category: Transport and highways
Sub Category: Parking and other penalties
- Going forward, the Council should set up a process where no monies received from its finance team will be processed until the parking team has completed an assessment on a case, to help ensure that PCNs will not be deemed paid if a challenge has accompanied a payment made. Any monies paid from a payment card will similarly be refunded if accompanied by a challenge and will be further requested, if necessary, when a challenge has been responded to.
- The Council will also place a notice on its website advising residents that if they have historically challenged and paid a PCN at the informal stage and have not had the opportunity to go to the Traffic Penalty Tribunal, they can take their case to the Ombudsman.
Case reference: 21 008 051
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Disabled facilities grants
- The Council should send a memo to officers dealing with disabled facilities grants and Millbrook Healthcare Ltd to remind them that the law allows the Council to award a discretionary grant if works have started but not been completed before the application was approved where the Council considers there are good reasons for doing so.
Case reference: 20 005 529
Category: Benefits and tax
Sub Category: COVID-19
- The Council has agreed to remind staff of the need to keep written records of their decision making in line with the Ombudsman’s Principles of Good Administrative Practice.
Case reference: 20 003 544
Category: Planning
Sub Category: Enforcement
- The Council will share the final decision with staff in the planning department to highlight the importance of the Data Protection Act.
Case reference: 19 015 778
Category: Planning
Sub Category: Planning applications
- The Council will provide the Ombudsman with the outcome of its review into the notification process to ensure all relevant addresses are notified in accordance with its Statement of Community Involvement.
- The Council will use its best efforts to agree an enforceable condition with the developer restricting the use of the fire escape for emergency or maintenance purposes only and provide an update on progress to the Ombudsman.
Case reference: 19 015 506
Category: Environment and regulation
Sub Category: Other
- The council will amend its policy to reflect that agreement to visits should be sough tin advance.
- The Council will remind staff of the importance of accurately recording the details of calls.
Case reference: 19 009 691
Category: Planning
Sub Category: Enforcement
- The Council has agreed to take action as necessary to ensure complaints are acknowledged promptly in future and take action to ensure there is oversight of complaints in order to meet timescales even where there are changes in staff.
Last updated: 4 April 2015