City council says public complaints provide ‘valuable feedback’

Claims of poor service and the bad attitude of staff have caused most formal complaints to Dundee City Council.

There were 354 complaints that required an investigation during 2011/12.

Housing-related problems were biggest single cause of public concern, accounting for 102 cases.

The total was well up on the previous year, but a report by chief executive David Dorward points out that 2011/12 was the first full year in which education and social work cases were included on the electronic system.

Mr Dorward says: ”As well as ensuring that individual complaints are investigated and responded to, a key aim of the complaints system should be to help us learn from complaints, seeing them as valuable feedback on service performance.

”Depending on whether or not complaints are justified, and on their root cause, there may be a need to change policies or procedures, provide training for staff or consider service improvements.”

Some 23% of complaints were about services that fell below the standard expected, with 20% relating to the attitude or behaviour of a council employee and 16% about a failure to respond to a query or request.

Some 32.7% of complaints were upheld.