Better communication urged over council complaints

A Shropshire Council report said more than 950 investigations were carried out as a result of complaints in 2024-25

A council is being urged to communicate better with residents after more than 2,000 complaints about the local authority were made in a year.

Communication was "consistently a dominant theme within complaints", said a report sent to Shropshire Council's cabinet ahead of its meeting on Wednesday.

The new Liberal Democrat administration said it wanted to improve its customer service to people.

In one 2024-25 complaint, the council was labelled as "a self-serving despot corporation acting under the guise of a council" by a customer, who said he wanted to raise a formal complaint over the general enquiries line.

In his complaint, the man said it was "hopeless" to get through to one of the options on the line, with the 10 minutes he was waiting added to his telephone bill.

The council was "quick to take money from people" but reluctant to provide services "that [meet] the needs of this town", he added.

Liberal Democrat Heather Kidd leads Shropshire Council

A total of 2,386 complaints were made by people about the authority during 2024-25.

In the report, the council said 952 investigations were carried out as a result of the complaints.

Other examples it provided include complaints relating to children's services, revenues and benefits, waste management and housing.

Of the actions taken in response that were recorded, 56% were to provide an apology, 16% included giving extra information or explanation and 11% were actions linked to arranging employee training or guidance.

The report set out a number of areas to focus on for the year ahead in terms of how the council applied its complaints procedures and gets and responds to customer feedback.

They included staff training and focusing on the quality of their responses and response times.

"Complainants often highlight disappointment that they were not contacted, were not communicated with enough or information was not shared effectively," the report said.

"More effective communication at an earlier stage can lead to a better understanding of the issues or the processes council staff work to - and prevent the development of a formal complaint."

This news was gathered by the Local Democracy Reporting Service which covers councils and other public service organisations.