Issue - meetings

The item was introduced by Ruth Rollings (Complaints Manager). There had been a 30 per cent reduction in the number of complaints received by the teams covered by the Resources Directorate since 2021/22, and a 67 per cent drop in complaints for issues relating to WFRS. There had been a drop in compliments from 22 to 12, while WFRS had received no compliments during the last year. There had been a notable spike in complaints received in January 2023, which was attributed to the migration of data to a new system. One complaint received by WFRS in August 2023 had not been included in the trend analysis.

Of the complaints received, 36 per cent related to residents stating they had not received a service to which they felt they were entitled. A further 22 per cent of complaints related to a lack of communication from staff at the Council. The highest number of complaints received by the Resources Directorate were in relation to customer relations. However, this included all stage 2 and stage 3 complaints, and stage 1 complaints that could not be assigned to a team because their complexity meant they needed to be handled by more than one team. Ruth Rollings said 59 per cent of complaints had been closed within timescale. Over the last year letter templates had started to be included on the system to make query handling easier and processes had been put in place that made capturing outcomes more efficient.

Councillor Tim Sinclair said he was pleased at the improved report which picked up the feedback he had provided in previous years. He said it would be useful for future reports to show complaints made by 100,000 population. Councillor Sarah Feeney said it would be useful to know more information about the reasons why some timescales were not being met, such as the complexity of the complaint.

Councillor Rob Tromans noted the changes in processes that had been made, which he hoped would lead to an improvement in service and learning to avoid repeated service failures. He noted that 34 per cent of complaints were resolved at stage 1 and stated his belief this figure should be higher. Ruth Rollings said the letter templates should help to address this as it gave staff a set of bullet points as to what needed to be responded to in order to resolve a complaint.

Members noted the contents of the report.