3 days ago
Falkirk Council has three times as many complaints as national average
By far the biggest cause for complaint was 'ongoing or incomplete repair times'
Falkirk Council has three times the number of complaints compared to the Scottish average, members of its Scrutiny committee heard today (Tuesday).
The largest number related to 'ongoing or incomplete repairs' (1030), but in the top ten reasons were also complaints about waste collection (364), staff conduct (206) and housing repairs (188).
Stage 1 complaints in Falkirk also included council tenant advice & support (144) and 131 for household waste assisted collections.
But the report was keen to highlight that while the council receives a higher number of complaints, "it is quicker to respond and more successful at early resolution".
In 2023/24, Falkirk Council received 34 complaints per 1000 of population, compared with the national average of 11.5.
The average time it took to respond was six working days, three days quicker than the national average.
For stage two complaints, it took on average 20 days, compared with the Scottish average of 22.
Of the stage one complaints, in Falkirk ten per cent were fully upheld - compared with the Scottish average of 32 per cent.
At the first stage, 30 per cent of complaints were resolved quickly, compared to the Scottish average of 14 per cent.
Stage 2 outcomes saw eight per cent of Falkirk's complaints being fully upheld, compared to the Scottish average of 26 per cent.
Of the 47 complaints that have gone to the Scottish Public Ombudsman Service, just one was upheld.
Members were also cautioned that not all councils provide the same services so making direct comparisons is not always possible.
Some local authorities do not have housing or building maintenance departments, while these are by far the most common areas for complaints to Falkirk Council.
Last year, 1030 stage one complaints concerned 'ongoing or incomplete repairs'.
Members heard that "a lot of activity" is ongoing to improve the repairs procedure, which has already led to a fall in complaints, from 1347 last year.
Members were told that ongoing training to give the workforce "bolt-on skills" is expected to have a big impact on improving customer satisfaction, as will a recently introduced booking system for appointments.
The Director of Place Services, Malcolm Bennie, added that it was important to see the figures in context.
"Every year we carry out around 40.000 repairs so the 1300 complaints you see before is actually 2-3 per cent.
"I'm not saying those complaints are not important. We will drive service improvement wherever we can but it's important when you see a large number like that you have to understand the context that tens of thousands of repairs are happening.
"We do tenant satisfaction checks with tenants about how happy they are with the repairs that are carried out and typically the scores are very high.
"The BMD service is actually working well, on an improvement journey, and we are looking forward to coming back to Scrutiny later this year with a full suite of information."
With just one year's figures to compare, Councillor Gordon Forrest was concerned at the lack of data from previous years, which would allow them to "see the bigger picture".
He was told it had not been retained due to data protection rules but anonymised data that has been collated will be kept from now on to make future comparison.
Councillor Alf Kelly also wanted to fully understand why complaints were dropping, saying: "If we don't know why complaints are dropping, we don't know where we are succeeding."
Councillor Lorna Binnie said she was particularly concerned to see 206 complaints about staff conduct and wanted to understand more about the reasons for these, and how many had been upheld.
Director of communities, Karen Algie, assured members that all complaints about staff conduct are taken seriously and thoroughly investigated.
The figures are reported to the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO) which says councils must have processes in place to learn from complaints and use this learning to improve service delivery.
