Council receiving more compliments and fewer complaints

The number of complaints made to Shropshire Council dropped in 2020/21 while the number of compliments went up by more than 50 per cent.

The council’s annual customer feedback report said much of the positive feedback received was around the authority’s response to the pandemic, with people getting in touch to thank the council for maintaining vital services and providing urgent support to those in need.

Complaints dropped from 1,487 to 1,200 in the space of a year and the number of compliments rose from 405 to 614, the report said.

Meanwhile the number of neutral comments – including feedback and suggestions – went up from 719 to 801.

The report was presented to the authority’s performance management scrutiny committee by Sarah Dodds, feedback and insight team leader, who said the increase in compliments was “rewarding and encouraging” for staff working through the pandemic.

It also represented a reversal of a general downward trend in the number of compliments received in previous years.

Moving on to complaints, Ms Dodds said there had been a “really good reduction” in the number received in relation to adult social care, though there was a “slight increase” seen in children’s services.

The service area which saw the greatest proportion of complaints was highways with 30 per cent, followed by waste and recycling on eight per cent, and planning with six per cent.

The 1,200 total complaints resulted in 1,091 complaint investigations – a significant drop from 1,833 the previous year.

Ms Dodds explained the number of investigations varies from the number of complaints received as some may be withdrawn or may be better dealt with as a service request. On the other hand, some complaints generate multiple investigations if they involve more than one council department.

Of the 921 complaints closed in 20/21, 12 per cent were upheld and 18 per cent were partly upheld. The previous year, 14 per cent of complaints were upheld in full and 12 per cent in part.

Ms Dodds said: “If we saw there were too few cases being upheld, I would probably question that. That would indicate maybe that we weren’t taking responsibility for issues when they come up.

“Nobody is expected to deliver a perfect service all the time, so we would expect to see a proportion of upheld complaints.”

Meanwhile 33 per cent of complaints were not upheld, 13 per cent were dealt with as service requests and 14 per cent were withdrawn.

The remaining ten per cent of cases were closed with an outcome of ‘no finding’. This was a reduction on 16 per cent the previous year when it was found that highways officers were failing to handle complaints appropriately, and it was recommended that this be addressed as a priority during 20/21.

Ms Dodds said is was reassuring to find “very few clusters around themes” among complaint cases. She added: “If we saw huge numbers coming through on one theme that would indicate there were service quality issues that need to be addressed.”

There were 82 complaints which progressed past the first stage, through a next-stage council investigation or the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGO). This was up from 47 the previous year.

Ms Dodds told the committee that the average amount of time taken to respond to complaints had increased over the last three years from 14 working days to 22, and now to 23. She added that this was still well within the limit of 30 days.

Councillor Alan Mosley said this “enormous deterioration” was a cause for concern.

The report made a number of recommendations, including reducing the number of service requests evolving into complaints and reducing the number of complaints escalating past stage one.