Wolverhampton council: 1,700 complaints made to authority in three years
More than 1,500 complaints have been made about Wolverhampton Council in the last three years.
Since 2014 there have been 1,737 complaints made to the council about its services, the annual corporate social care and public health complaints report revealed.
The year 2014/15 saw the largest number of complaints with 718 submitted. In 2015/16 there were 515 and in 2016/17 there have been 505 submitted from April 2016 to the end of March 2017.
Complaints range include issues with housing, children's services, environmental services and benefits services.
The report states: "Complaints procedures are a mechanism to identify problems and resolve issues. If things go wrong or fall below expectation, we try to sort things out quickly and fairly. We also want to learn from our mistakes or concerns that arise and will make changes to improve services."
Out of the recorded complaints from April 1 2016 to 31 March 2017, 90 were in relation to adult social care services.
This year’s figure of 90 complaints compares with 81 in 2015/16, an increase of nine.
A total of 105 complaints were received in the same period for 2014/15.
Out of these adult social care complaints, 33 separate service areas received a complaint and some received multiple complaints.
The highest number of complaints were received by the health and social care team with 13 complaints and adult community team north receiving 12 complaints.
The report continues: "Despite the slight increase in overall complaints in 2016/17 the average number of days to respond and conclude all complaints during this year went down to 11 days, compared to 19 days in 2015/16.
"We will seek to maintain and indeed improve on that average response time where possible, it is however a positive position given the increasing complexity of complaints received."
The report was discussed at a meeting of the council's scrutiny panel.
A spokesman for Wolverhampton council said: "The number of complaints were down this year in comparison to previous years and the number of upheld complaints was relatively small.
"We investigate every one in order to reassure the public and improve services in whatever way we can."
