Customer complaints at the rate of one a day have been made to Angus Council.
Councillors on the authority’s scrutiny and audit committee will be told that in the year to the end of March, a total of 363 complaints were logged under a new reporting system.
Chief executive Richard Stiff has said the council’s directorates are being encouraged to log all complaints that come in from Angus residents, and he hopes information from the more detailed electronic recording system will help the authority “get it right first time”.
The data also shows that the vast majority of complaint calls related to what are deemed “straightforward” customer issues that need little or no investigation to deal with.
The Scottish Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO) developed a new model complaints handling procedure that local authorities were required to adopt.
The procedure, and an electronic system to log, monitor and report on formal complaints, was introduced on April 1 2013 and the report being presented to councillors represents the first full-year data.
Mr Stiff states: “During the period April 1 2013 to March 31 2014, 363 complaints were recorded on the system. This reflects continued encouragement to directorates to log complaints.”
The new electronic system records both stages of the handling procedure-service resolution involving straightforward customer complaints that require little or no investigation, and complex investigation matters that require detailed examination. The data breakdown reveals that 281 service complaints and 82 investigation complaints were lodged during the year.
All councils are also required to report on a range of performance indicators, covering areas such as the number of complaints received per thousand population, response times, resulting service improvements and the number upheld.
The largest number of complaints 90 of the 363 were made about either the attitude of council staff or the way a customer had been treated.
Delays in responding to requests and below-standard service were also high on the list of complaints.
Mr Stiff’s report adds: “Senior management will review regularly the information gathered from complaints and consider whether our services could be improved or internal policies and procedures updated.
“The complaints process appears to be working reasonably well, although it is acknowledged that stage two complaints are taking longer than they should. As the complaints process is developed it is hoped that timescales and performance will improve.
“Introducing an electronic recording system has provided a standard approach to handling complaints in Angus Council and aims to help us ‘get it right first time’.”