Compliments & Complaints Annual Report 2024 to 2025
6. Adult Social Care (ASC) complaints
Adult Social Care complaints that are not covered by a separate statutory procedure follow the corporate complaints procedure. The Adult social Care (ASC) statutory complaints process is a single stage process aimed at resolving issues. The graph shows 100 statutory complaints in the year, up from 66 in 2023/24. Prior to being escalated through the formal complaints process, the service works to provide a suitable informal resolution with the agreement of the complainant. This year, 32 pre-complaints were able to be resolved informally.
Adult Social Care statutory concerns and complaints
| Resolved informally | Complaints | |
|---|---|---|
| Q1 | 12 | 27 |
| Q2 | 8 | 28 |
| Q3 | 6 | 24 |
| Q4 | 6 | 21 |
The graph below shows a decrease in the total number of complaints and informal resolutions. This year fewer issues were raised for informal consideration, primarily because many complaints involve funding decisions (e.g. care home residents who were previously self-funded now receiving care in more cost-effective settings). In addition, there have been instances of complaints about unclear communication regarding when individuals are responsible for paying for their own care. These issues are best handled through formal complaints processes to ensure funding issues are resolved promptly and any learnings are appropriately implemented. Although higher than 2023/24 the total number of concerns and complaints remains lower than previous years.
Annual comparison of concerns and complaints
| Year | 2021/2022 | 2022/2023 | 2023/2024 | 2024/25 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Complaints | 49 | 73 | 66 | 100 |
| Concerns | 105 | 87 | 53 | 32 |
| Total | 157 | 160 | 119 | 132 |
Although the statutory timescale permits up to six months for issuing a final response to a complaint, the Council had an established a local benchmark of 28 calendar days to resolve most complaints. The average response time in 2024/25 was 24 days which is 2 days more than the previous year.
A new complaints procedure has been introduced from 1 June 2025, following Ombudsman guidance around early resolution. This is a one stage, two-step approach. The first step is the early resolution stage which aims to rectify issues within 20 working days. If the issue is not resolved, then a thorough investigation will be carried out and a formal complaint response with referral rights to the Ombudsman is sent to the complainant.