Key facts about complaints
‘The best authorities use complaints as a barometer of external opinion and as an early warning of problems might otherwise stay unseen. They take that a step further and use critical feedback to drive a sophisticated culture of learning, reflection and improvement.’ Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman
- We received 110 stage-one complaints, eight were not investigated because they were withdrawn by the customer. This is an increase compared to last year, when 76 stage-one complaints were investigated.
- Following investigation, 59 stage-one complaints were either upheld or partially upheld, compared to 33 last year.
- 43 complaints were not upheld because, while the customer was not happy with the service they received, or the decision the council made, teams had delivered the service or decision in line with policy. Poor practice or injustice was not found.
- We issued 55 apologies this year, compared to 19 last year.
- We responded to 15 stage-two complaints, which is one less than in the previous year. Two were upheld, three were partially upheld and ten were not upheld.
- The most upheld or partially upheld complaints related to joint waste (39%, 23), revenues, benefits and corporate debt (12%, 7), planning, elections and customer services (8 %, 5).
- Whilst upheld complaints about our joint waste service increased slightly this year (four additional relating mainly to missed bins, assisted collections and blue bag returns), when you consider the service emptied over 8,816,589 bins from 84,596 households, the number of complaints is still very low.
- Upheld planning-related complaints increased to five, compared to one last year.
- 83% (85) of stage-one complaints were responded to within the target timescales, which is slightly less than last year when 89% (68) of complaints met our target timescales.
- Stage-two complaints can be complex and often require further information and input from third parties which can cause delays in responses being sent. If this is the case customers are kept informed. In 2024/2025 40% (6) were responded to without an extension.
* In line with our complaint policy, where there has been a service failure which is easily rectified, e.g., a report of litter in a park, or a missed bin collection, these are not logged as complaints unless they become repeat issues, and the customer asks to log a complaint