EXMINSTER county councillor Alan Connett says he is ‘appalled’ at the time taken by officers to respond to complaints. 

Devon County Council’s senior officials are being urged to improve the time it takes.

Out of 1,595 complaints to the council in the last financial year, only 1,035 were responded to in time.

Cllr Connett said while Devon might not be dissimilar to other local authorities in terms of the percentage of complaints upheld, he was not pleased.

He said: ‘We’re getting worse and the report seems to suggest the council should be okay because we’re below average.

‘I’m rather appalled we’re getting worse, and while I understand the pressures in children’s services, when people make complaints against an organisation, they tend to look more favourably if they get a prompt reply but have a bad impression of those they are forever chasing.’

The standards committee heard education, children’s social care, and special educational needs and disabilities (Send) department tended to have most complaints, although climate change, environment and transport received most last year, at 795.

Children’s social care was second with 336, education and learning third with 268 and integrated adult social care came fourth with 197.

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, which intervenes when complainants don’t feel their issue has been resolved, was involved in 151 complaints.

Of those, 81 were investigated, and four in five were upheld by the ombudsman.

At 83 per cent, the rate of decisions upheld is up on the previous year’s 74 per cent, but below the 85 per cent average in other local authorities.

The LGSCO made 128 recommendations to the council as a result of upheld complaints, including mandating a total of £72,000 in compensation for complainants. 

Cllr Connett said: ‘We’ve been asked to consider this report, but how do we make our scrutiny effective, so that directors give it some oomph and clarity of approach, and say that dealing with complaints is important.’

The committee formally escalated its concerns to Devon’s senior leadership team and urged a stronger focus on the timeliness of responses to reduce the likelihood of escalating to more serious levels.