Agenda item

To receive the Annual Customer Feedback Reports for 2024-25.

The Service Delivery Manager: Customer Relationships and Welfare Services presented the Annual Customer Feedback Reports for 2024-25 which set out details of customer feedback received between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025.  The report set out details regarding compliments and complaints that had been received during the reporting period and explained that the Council had adopted the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code prior to it being a requirement.

Following a rigorous assessment, the Council had recently become the first Local Authority to receive a ServiceMark accreditation from the Institute of Customer Services (ICS) which recognised the Council’s commitment to upholding high standards. The Institute’s work had been benchmarked against both public and private sectors.

Customer satisfaction rates had improved from 72.1 in 2022 to 74 making the Council’s results comparable with leading organisations such as Amazon and John Lewis.  The Net Promoter Score increased from 18 to 19.4, indicating a higher likelihood of customers recommending services, and the Customer Effort Score was 4.3, better than other councils at 5.8 with the public sector average score of 4.5 and the commitment to customer service excellence was evident in its strategic day-to-day operations.

Compliments had shown a sustained increase of 128% over six years with a 17% increase during the previous 12 months.   There had been 790 statutory complaints received in 2024/25 up from the 735 complaints received during the previous year, comprising a small percentage of the thousands of daily interactions that took place.

The Customer Insight Programme engaged 235 volunteers for mystery shopping, completing 158 assignments with 86% satisfaction rate and there had been a 9% increase in the number of volunteers.

Contact centre performance remained excellent, with 98% customer satisfaction on telephone calls.   Compliments and complaints were managed alongside Leader, Cabinet and MP enquiries.  There were 796 Cabinet and Leader enquiries with 90% being responded to within deadline.  A total of 302 ward member enquiries were received, a 9% increase, with 91% being responded to within timescales and 253 MP enquiries had been received with 88% responded to within timescales.

Corporate complaints rose to 710 from 659 the previous year, with 281 being upheld, a 2% reduction from the previous year.  Common issues included poor communication, conduct, lack of action, incomplete work, and delays.  Despite the increase, average response times improved to eight working days compared to ten previously.   A total of 13% were escalated to Stage 2 (91 cases), a 30% increase, but upheld cases reduced from 50% to 26%.   Average completion time was 31 days, within the 20–40 days as set out in the Code.  Despite this, two complex cases exceeded the timescales.   No major trends were identified across teams.  

Across the 219 managed housing properties, five complaints had been received and responded to within the Housing Ombudsman Code.

Adult Social Care recorded 57 complaints, up from 39 the previous year, with 44% upheld which was down from the previous year.  Average response times had reduced to 24 days from 29. Children’s Services recorded 23 complaints of which 43% were upheld, with an average response time of 14 days.  Four complaints escalated to Stage 2; three were not upheld, and one escalated to Stage 3 and was upheld against historical standards.   Learning actions had been implemented and details were set out in the report.   Ofsted had rated Children’s Services as Outstanding.   The LGSCO annual review noted 30 new enquiries with 16 relating to statutory complaints.  Of these enquiries, 21 were not investigated, nine investigated with three upheld, and six mirrored previous findings which had been fully implemented.

During the debate, Members welcomed the thorough report which demonstrated that the Council was very open to feedback with compliments and complaints showing that this was working.  They were heartened to hear that each complaint was looked into and any learning taken away and implemented.  In relation to complaints, how did the Council ensure that the process remained accessible to all service users ie capacity, language and digital exclusion and was any learning taken from the 112 compliments that had been received.  Other questions were raised relating to the trialling of AI and developing learning from customer feedback and the use of Ask Tom.

The Service Delivery Manager: Customer Relationships and Welfare Services explained that complaints could be taken in a number of ways, including in cases where dissatisfaction was expressed verbally, this would be recorded and logged so that the service was accessible for the complainant.  Internally the Council continued to explore AI via the AI Governance Board who looked at the opportunities and risks.  The organisation already had some AI solutions in place, including Copilot, and Magic Notes was currently being trialled in key services for the purpose of producing notes of meetings    Throughout all of the activity discussed in the report, best practice was shared including examples of exceptional service as well as areas where the experience may have fallen short. 

The Director: Policy & Governance explained that Ask Tom was the primary customer-facing contact mechanism but that other contact routes remained in place and the Council had been clear that it would not remove other options for contacting the Council.  It was also confirmed that the Council continued to explore new opportunities for the use of AI in a proportionate and ethical way to ensure that any risks were appropriately managed. More recently, the introduction of Magic Notes had led to better records of interactions and interviews in such areas as social care and were very useful in recording, transcribing and taking minutes of meetings

Upon being put to the vote it was, unanimously:

RESOLVED – that:

a)    Telford & Wrekin Council had been awarded ServiceMark accreditation by The Institute of Customer Services. The first Council to achieve a ServiceMark, this recognised excellence in customer service standards across the public and private sector and that this be noted;

b)   the Customer Feedback Reports for 2024-25 in respect of Adult Statutory Complaints, Children’s Statutory Complaints and Corporate Customer Feedback, and the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman Review Letter 2025 be reviewed; and

c)    the improvement in complaint handing performance and the increase in positive feedback be noted.