THE number of complaints made to Dumfries and Galloway Council has hit a five-year high.
Members of the public lodged 631 complaints with the local authority last year, according to a new report.
This is an increase of 50 on the previous year, and 175 more than in 2019/20.
The number one reason for grievances related to professionalism of staff, with 61 contacts made on this issue.
Waste collection problems, along with inadequate or poor standard of service, were next as both of these issues received 40 complaints.
Bullying/behaviour in schools resulted in 33 complaints, while road condition/road maintenance led to 29 contacts from members of the public. The other listed complaints were on: communication; council tax; additional support needs; learning and teaching; planning; policy and procedure; potholes; school estate; road works and road closures; and drains.
The reasons behind the increase and finer details will be discussed by councillors next Tuesday when the annual complaints monitoring report for April 2023-March 2024 is presented.
The report by Nick Evans, the council’s democratic services manager, states: “The number of complaints received by our council in 2023/24 has increased from the previous year.
“This is the highest number of complaints that we have recorded over the past five years.”
It is claimed that the increase could be partly attributed to better awareness of the complaint handling procedures both internally and externally.
The report states: “Customers are more aware of their right to complain and more likely to raise it as a complaint. If complaint figures continue as they are from quarter one in 2024, we will see a further increase for 2024/25.
“Customers can complain to the council in a range of ways. By email and online via our webform continue to be the way that most of our customers chose to contact us with their complaints.
“This is followed by 18 percent contacting us by telephone and six percent through the contact centre. Only four percent of complainants contacted us by letter and one percent in person. We also had one complaint received via SMS/text.
“Our aim is to ‘get it right first time’ with quick, simple, and streamlined handling of complaints with local, early resolution by capable, well-trained staff.
The majority of complaints (82 percent) are addressed and concluded at stage one of the process.
In her foreword to the annual complaints monitoring report, chief executive Dawn Roberts wrote: “The council is committed to getting things right first time and the feedback we receive from our customers and service users provides us with an invaluable understanding as to what we are doing well and where we can improve.”
