Report details lessons learnt from Land Charges system delay
Published Wednesday 9 September 2026
Following the delays in delivering South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse District Councils’ new Land Charges system this year, a report has been published setting out the causes of the project delays and identifying lessons learnt.
The report went before the councils’ Joint Scrutiny Committee on Monday 7 September.
Members of the committee reviewed the report and concluded that lessons from the Land Charges project should lead to improvements in project governance, risk management, transparency of communications, access to specialist expertise and collaborative working on future systems. The committee also formally acknowledged the considerable effort of officers, contractors and partners put in towards stabilising and operating the service.
A joint statement from Cllr Maggie Filipova-Rivers, Leader of South Oxfordshire District Council, and Cllr Bethia Thomas, Leader of Vale of White Horse District Council:
“We thank the Scrutiny Committee for their input and questioning as part of the candid process of examining the Land Charges project, and welcome their reflections on the report and their recommendations for the future.
“We want to be as transparent as possible on the reasons behind the delays to our Land Charges upgrade. We fully recognise the frustration and uncertainty this has caused for residents, businesses and professionals who rely on this service.
“Whilst we cannot change the past, we can be as open as possible in the reasons behind the delays and set out in detail what we can learn from the experience, to ensure any future service transformation projects are managed as effectively as possible.
“The report reflected on the implementation of this project, including the processes, planning and challenges encountered, to understand if disruption could have been reduced.
“It also aimed to provide some reassurance our service has effective arrangements in place to restore our search turnaround times to the target eight working days. We are pleased to report that these arrangements have had a positive impact, and we have cleared the backlog.
“We offer our sincere apologies to everyone who has been impacted by the downtime of our Land Charges system. Thank you again to everyone for your patience and understanding.”
