Compliments & Complaints Annual Report 2022 to 2023
4. Themes from Complaints
Below is a table showing the top six reasons for complaints broken down by directorate.
Complaint Classification
| Chief Executive | Adults & Health | Children's Services | Communities | Planning, Growth & Sustainability | Resources | Deputy Chief Executive | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Behaviour or Conduct of Staff | 1 | 1 | 52 | 261 | 31 | 35 | 3 |
| Communication Issues | 0 | 6 | 93 | 566 | 75 | 136 | 6 |
| Decision or Assessment | 0 | 1 | 35 | 45 | 97 | 23 | 2 |
| Delay | 0 | 0 | 22 | 119 | 44 | 35 | 1 |
| Financial | 0 | 1 | 5 | 31 | 5 | 53 | 1 |
| Quality of Service Provided | 0 | 0 | 55 | 1,710 | 52 | 63 | 4 |
Communities had 1710 cases recorded as complaints about the quality of service provided. The majority of these relate to the round reorganisation as mentioned in 3.4 of this report. Communication also features for Communities and again there were communication problems related to the round reorganisation also. There were also over 200 staff conduct issues for Waste.
Approximately 23% of all complaints were about communication. The majority will be complaints about a lack of response but there are also some about staff rudeness and non-clarity in communications.
Quality of service, as mentioned above, made up 48% of complaints. Apart from the waste issues already mentioned, this includes complaints about road resurfacing and repairs and in all other directorates customer concerns that their expectations and standards have not been met.
10% of complaints were about staff conduct, 187 (48%) of these were upheld. Apart from that mentioned in 4.2 above TfB, Housing & Regulatory Services, Customer Service Centre, Revenues and Benefits feature in this.
7% of cases were about delay. This could be about delay in assessments, in planning applications, delay in putting something right (e.g., filling a pothole).