Council received 27 formal complaints in a year including toilet blockages and shrubbery removal

The council’s first annual report of complaints received covers the year from April 2018 to March 2019 and was presented at two meetings this month.

Among the concerns raised through the formal complaints process was how front-line council officers engage with people with mental health issues. The authority is now seeking someone to provide mental health training to officers.

Other lessons learned from complaints included “actively listening to the complaint, stop being defensive and not making judgement, particularly when the individual concerned has raised multiple issues.” in the case of an ongoing window disrepair.

It was also found that the priority chart used for disabled adaptations needed reviewing. after “the information provided proved misleading, suggesting applicants were given priority on age rather than on the points based system used.”

And a complaint relating to on-going toilet blockages identified issues with drainage on four housing estates where there are two toilets in the property which run into one sewer pipe

The report added: “There was one formal complaint received about an elected member (and) there were four formal complaints received about Council Officers that required investigation in the period April to March.

“There were four enquiries from the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) in the period, requesting information from the council following complaints submitted direct to the LGO. In all of these cases the LGO elected not to instigate a formal investigation.

All but three of the 27 formal complaints were resolved at the first stage of the council’s handling policy, the report said. A further two were resolved at the second stage and one went to the third stage – submission to the council’s Appeals and Complaints Panel for consideration by members.

The local taxation and benefits department received the most formal complaints – 12 in total. There were seven complaints relating to housing services including maintenance, two relating to planning services, a further two about environmental health, one about a mis-sold mortgage insurance policy, one about a council committee meeting and two complaining about parks and open spaces issues – these involved damage caused by a tree and trespassing and removal of a shrubbery.

The report said: “In the 12 month period, just under 86,000 telephone calls were handled by customer services; an average of 7,166 calls per month. An additional circa 51,000 calls were handled by revenues and benefits staff.

“A proportion of the contact with customers involves difficult and sensitive issues such as taking enforcement action for non-payment of council tax/business rates and breaches of legislation. In the context of this significant and complex customer contact, the council receives a relatively small number of complaints but it remains important that effective arrangements are in place to handle these and to learn any lessons.”