Performance by Kildare County Council

A survey of complaints received by the Ombudsman against Kildare County Council (KCC) since 2003 identified delay on the part of the Council as a very significant problem for the Ombudsman in processing complaints. These delays mainly concern the provision of reports and responses to the Ombudsman in relation to complaints referred to the Council. In the course of 2005 it was necessary to issue a Section 7 notice to the Council on twelve occasions. This should be viewed in the context of a total of 27 complaints received against the Council in that year. In 2006, seven Section 7 notices issued in the context of 28 complaints received.

In the period 2003 to 2006 inclusive, eighty nine complaints were received against Kildare County Council as the following table illustrates:

In Appendix 1 to this report, details are given of a selection of complaints received in that period in order to demonstrate the difficulties the Office has encountered in processing them with the Council. At a wide ranging meeting with the County Manager on 14 May 2003, staff of the Ombudsman were advised that any communications difficulties between the Council and the Ombudsman would shortly be resolved because it was proposed to incorporate Ombudsman complaints in the Council's newly installed electronic tracking system. It was hoped that this would eliminate some of the difficulties in the liaison arrangements between the respective offices. From Appendix 1, it is clear that, unfortunately, performance has not improved in the manner envisaged by the County Manager in 2003.