THE number of complaints made to Lichfield District Council have risen – with issues around waste being the most complained about.
However, revenues and benefits, corporate debt, housing, and planning and enforcement also had concerns raised by the public, a report has revealed.
The overview and scrutiny committee heard that between 1st April 2023 and 31st March 2024, 91 complaints were received compared to 70 in the previous year.
The number of apologies from the local authority issued also rose from 16 to 19.
The report revealed that not all complaints were recorded, with those where there has been a service failure which is easily rectified not registered unless they become repeat issues and the complainant asks for it to be formally logged.
Cllr Doug Pullen, leader of Lichfield District Council, said:
“Accountability and transparency are really key for us and this is one of the ways we demonstrate accountability and transparency when we get things wrong as we do occasionally as an organisation.
“The numbers in the report look as if the number of complaints is tracking upwards, but we think we’re just getting better at recording what we view as a complaint.
“The number of stage one complaints we upheld is not the same as the number of apologies we issued. Stage one complaints upheld are higher, so that’s obviously not right. Where we uphold a complaint we absolutely should be apologising and processes are being put in place to ensure that that’s done in a more sensible manner.”
Despite the number of MP enquiries falling to 97 from 116, councillors on the committee felt like the MPs should be making use of ward councillors in the first instance.
Labour opposition group leader Cllr Sue Woodward said:
“Having MP enquiries into this report sort of muddies the water it seems because I don’t need to know about the casework of an MP – I need to know if they are genuinely making a complaint or a compliment.
“It seems to me that if there are 97 MP enquiries this year then they are not using their local members effectively enough because councillors do their casework on a day-to-day basis.
“I would certainly encourage the new MP for Lichfield and the re-elected MP for Tamworth to work with the local councillors so they are not having to pass on enquiries about ‘can you clear this fly-tipping’ or ‘can you empty these litter bins’ because that just seems to be a waste of time for Members of Parliament.”
