Revealed: Shropshire Council receives more complaints and takes longer to resolve them

The council received a total of 1,934 complaints in 2023/24, up from just under 1,800 in the previous year, while the amount of time taken to resolve complaints has also risen from 26 days to 31 days.

However, compliments to council services also rose by around 9 per cent over the previous year, rising from 436 to 475.

A report due to be discussed by the council’s scrutiny committee next week will show that complaint cases formed around 73 per cent of all feedback received by the authority last year, and resulted in a total of 978 formal investigations.

The report sets out 15 recommendations for improving the council’s complaints handling processes, including making it easier for residents to report feedback online, and continuing efforts to improve response times.

The majority of complaints investigated (62 per cent) were due to delays, service quality or failure to act while the next highest category related to decisions made by council officers (24 per cent).

Complaints relating to Highways and Transport formed 17 per cent of all upheld complaints with 16 per cent for Special Educational Needs and Disability. Around two thirds of upheld complaints resulted in an apology from the council.

Of the 79 cases which resulted in a referral to the Local Government ombudsman, 19 complaints were upheld.

Meanwhile, the amount of formal enquiries Shropshire Council received from the county’s MP’s has almost doubled in the past two years, with 693 enquiries reported last year, with the vast majority (72 per cent) of those enquiries coming from the office of the MP for North Shropshire, Helen Morgan.

Former Ludlow MP Phillip Dunne raised 118 queries (17 per cent) while 57 (8 per cent) came from the office of former Shrewsbury MP Daniel Kawczynski. A further 3 per cent came from other MPs outside the area.

A total of 34 per cent of all MP enquiries covered highway and traffic issues, while 13 per cent related to housing issues, and 8 per cent related to planning.

Shropshire Council says an increase in complaints in Childrens Services relates to “growing pressure in this service area, particularly around children with Special Educational Needs” while a 10 per cent drop in complaints relating to highways showed the council’s “continued focus” on improving council-maiontained roads.

“While the long-term trend is of increasing numbers of complaints received, up by more than a third since 2016/17, year on year the volume of customer feedback has continued to stabilise,” said a summary of the council report.

“There is however a continuing trend of greater complexity in the complaints recorded, with many cases now requiring greater staff input and resource due to the nature of the issues raised.

“The average response time is affected by a number of complaints which take far longer to resolve. These are usually linked to highly complex issues. In some cases, service area performance is a concern.

“Considering the current focus on transforming the council to address the budget situation and implementing new ways and models of working, the current situation is not expected to alter significantly in the short to medium term.”

The report and recommendations will be discussed at a meeting of the Transformation and Improvement Scrutiny committee on Monday, September 9.