Service improvements

Surrey County Council

Showing service improvements between 1 April 2025 and 31 March 2026

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.

Showing 1 - 1 of 1 cases with service improvements

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Downloads the current filtered list of service improvement decisions for Surrey County Council as a CSV file.

  • Surrey County Council (24 021 919)

    Category: Other Categories Date: 09-Jan-2026

    Summary

    X complained about the Council’s communication with them about their application for a site plot and questioned if it fairly followed its allocation scheme. We found the Council at fault for poor communication, poor record keeping and failure to demonstrate transparency with its allocation decisions. This caused significant frustration and uncertainty to X. The Council has agreed to apologise and pay a symbolic payment to recognise their injustice. It has agreed to review its allocation scheme and make changes to how it retains records when administering the scheme.

    Service improvements

    The Council should consider our guidance on the Principles of Good Administrative Practice and:a)It should review and revise its allocation scheme, to include clear information and details of processes. Including when and how applicants and scored and explanations of how specific applicants are shortlisted;b)It should review and include processes of how it records the allocation of future plots to allow oversight and ensure it can evidence its decisions in line with its updated scheme; c)It should review its retention policies to ensure it keeps records for an appropriate amount of time;d)It should ensure it has a system in place to record and monitor dates of contact it should make with its applicants in line with its scheme; e)It should create an internal guidance note to explain what would warrant a high or low score for each allocation criteria to ensure consistency across applicants; andf)It should write to all applicants on its waiting list to advise of any changes it makes to its allocation scheme and the reasons for these.g)It should send the LGSCO an update at the three-month point with evidence of what progress it has made on this by that time.

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