Council complaints rise 35% in past year

Richard Youle, local democracy reporter

The number of complaints made by residents about Carmarthenshire Council has risen by 35 % in the past year

There were 1,855 complaints in 2023-24 compared to 1,376 and 884 in the previous two years.

A council officer told a scrutiny committee that expectations of public services were changing. “While the increase is disappointing I would not say that it’s unexpected either,” she said.

The officer also said complaints were becoming more complex and that “managing challenging behaviour is becoming more of an issue for us from a complaints perspective”.

Nearly half the complaints in 2023-24 were about the council’s place and infrastructure department, which includes things like waste collection and roads. The next highest number of complaints was the communities department, which includes housing services.

Budgetary pressures

A report before the governance and audit committee said councils have been facing years of budgetary pressures and that “this poses challenges for service delivery in terms of reduced capacity and stretched resources”.

The council tries to resolve complaints at what’s known as stage one, but if it’s not possible it moves onto stage two.

The report said the complaints team met colleagues from waste services regularly to work through key themes emerging from the data. It added that a rise in the number of housing repairs complaints had led to dedicated resources to work through the service pressures and respond to queries form the public.

The report said a large number of “redirects” were reaching the complaints team due to residents not being able to access information or know how to get a response to an enquiry, and that further work was needed to reduce these.

Adult services

The number of complaints about adult services fell in 2023-24 but increased for children’s services.

Meanwhile the council recorded 309 compliments from people. One person thanked highways staff who were out unblocking drains “during this awful weather”. Another said she wanted an officer who helped to know her that “I am in a much better position now because of her and I am doing a lot better”.

The officer presenting the report to the committee said working in the complaints team could be quite a thankless task but that it was quite satisfying when a complaint was resolved. The committee noted the contents of the report.