THE number of corporate complaints made to Staffordshire County Council has fallen – and the authority says it is working to improve the process for residents wanting to report an issue.
The new Reform UK administration, which came into power in May, added that it was looking at the time taken to respond to complaints as part of a new strategy.
Members of the corporate overview and scrutiny committee were also given the latest annual report on customer feedback and complaints at their meeting this week, which covers the period when the previous Conservative administration was in place.
During 2024-25 there were 83 stage one corporate complaints made to the council, down from 104 in 2023-24 and 95 in 2022-23.
The most complained about area was economy, infrastructure and skills, with 80 stage one complaints, while there was one each for transformation, children’s services and finance and resources.
There were 24 complaints escalated to stage two review requests. And the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) received 23 contacts during 2024-25.
There has been a “substantial increase” in stage one complaints relating to staff contact – up from 27% in 2023-24 to 44% in 2024-25, the report added. Issues raised were lack of assistance at household waste recycling centres, how staff communicate procedure or policy to customers, interactions with staff at local libraries and operative actions when managing roadworks.
But there was also a “significant reduction” in service-related complaints, down from 55% in 2023-24 to 38% in 2024-25. Complaints included lack of action in respect of issues reported on the highway that directly impact on customers and response to a planning application.
Emily Doorbar, the council’s head of customer excellence, told the committee:
“We’re completing a strategic review of the customer feedback and complaints team, focusing very much on any inefficiencies and actions from learnings from those reports. Due in mid-October, we’ve got a focus on the timeliness and access to real-time data improving the reporting.
“The team launched a new case tracker system to more effectively monitor and report on complaints, enquiries and compliments at the organisation, so we will be looking at improving that reporting and being more transparent and real-time in the data.”
Cllr Robin Hall said:
“The new case management system sounds promising. How is cabinet going to use that to drive real change in the eyes of the residents?”
Ms Doorbar responded:
“The new case management system is exciting – it gives us much clearer access to data to track the real-time progress of complaints.
“It’s not just complaints, but LGSCO investigations will be handled by the system and other complex work that can sometimes sit with the teams and service areas over a number of days.
“That often can be work that’s difficult to track. It also includes a learning module that will allow us to report on specific learnings against each complaint that’s either upheld or partially upheld.”
Cllr Ian Cooper, leader of the county council, said:
“People have genuine complaints. We have to take them seriously, we have to review them, look at them then decide what kind of action we’re going to take going forward to improve the customer service for everybody.
“When you get complaints, whether it’s a genuine one or something frivolous is hard to determine at the beginning. Going forward we’re going to take some actions.”
Cllr Chris Large, cabinet member for finance and resources, said:
“Why we wanted to take a strategic look at it was because the approach needs to be very clear. What we want to do in the new strategy is look at how quickly we react.
“What the evidence shows is if we get on the case early on, we can resolve the problem earlier. The longer it’s left, the more people get disgruntled and then that rises up the complaint ladder.
“The complaints that we get that are upheld – that’s an area to do with training. I’ve had some experience in the past with a public sector business where it’s to do with attitudes of staff and so on.
“That’s something within our remit. If it’s a policy or a procedural matter that’s another thing, but if it’s attitudinal we should be able to bring that down significantly. It’s been climbing up over the last three years, so what we want to do is put in some training and education in on how our staff handle complaints out there.
“It’s so important that when somebody complains, the person that’s receiving it becomes the customer champion. If someone can say ‘I hear what you’re saying, I’m going to have a look at it’ we should embrace that.”
