The number of complaints to Shropshire Council drops

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.

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

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

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.

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 drop from 1,833 the previous year.

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.

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

There was concern about the average time taken to respond to complaints which had increased over the last three years from 14 working days to 22, and now to 23. The limit of 30 days.

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