Compliments & Complaints Annual Report 2022 to 2023

The graph below shows the stage 1 corporate complaints received by directorate. 3099 cases were seen at stage 1 of the complaints process with a further 500 contacts made with the Complaints and Improvements Team that were dealt with outside the complaints process.

The Council experienced a large increase in the number of stage 1 complaints due to issues experienced by residents following the round reorganisation for Southern Waste during May/June 2022. When these 1788 complaints are removed the total number of complaints received reduces the number to 1311 complaints received for the other areas of the Council. As a comparator for 2021/22 the corresponding figure was 1129.

The graph below shows the number of stage 1 complaints received since the inception of Buckinghamshire Council.

April to June (Q1) was the busiest period for complaints with the total number received at 1148. This is followed by July to September (Q2) at 854. For the last two quarters of the year when the totals were 514 and 583 respectively.

The highest number of complaints was for Communities for the second year in a row and specifically for the South Waste Team who received 1788 stage 1 complaints for the year which is more than double the amount received during 2021/22. The reason for the increase particularly in the first half of the year was the round reorganisation for South Waste which caused more customers to make complaints about various aspects of their collection cycle, missed bin collections was the underlying problem here. To provide some context in the south of the county the Waste and Recycling Service deal with approximately 97,000 collections each day.

The second highest directorate for complaints was Resources with a total of 302 which is more than the total for 2021/22 of 176. Of the total for this year 246 were for Revenues and Benefits. There was a system upgrade during quarter 2 and quarter 3 which led to an increase in complaints predominantly in quarter 4. For context we issue 23500 council tax bills and 15500 business rates bills in a year.

Planning, Growth and Sustainability (P,G&S) were the third highest for complaints with 271 which is only 4 more than 2021/22. 77 of these complaints were for Housing and 109 were for Planning and Development. It is helpful to note that the Council received 6,472 planning applications for 2022/23 and that the total number of decisions made during this period was 5,793.

Children’s Services had a total of 214 complaints during 2022/23 which is a little less than 2021/22 figure of 229. SEND had 123 stage 1 complaints compared to 129 for 2021/22 and for context during 2022/23 the number of Education, Health & Care Plans maintained by Buckinghamshire increased by 10% (for the second year in a row) to 6034. Children’s Social Care had 57 corporate complaints and this is in addition to the statutory complaints received and documented in section 5 of this document.

The graph below shows the ten teams with the highest number of complaints for 2022/23.

Where a complaint takes longer than 20 working days to answer the Complaints and Improvements Team will write to the complainant and explain that there is a delay. For 2022/23 62% of stage 1 complaints were responded to within the timeframe. The overall average response time was 25 days.

78% of stage 1 complaints were upheld or partially upheld. The largest number of these was for Communities again a reflection of the problems encountered by South Waste in the first half of the year.

The following graph shows upheld and partially upheld complaints compared to the number of complaints received by directorate.