‘WE WELCOME your complaints’ – not what you might expect from any organisation, but senior officers at Dorset Council say they really do encourage valid moans about services.

Executive director of Place, John Sellgren, says the complaints process is a good way of learning for the new council.

“It’s important that we get them so we can work out where we are falling short and do something about it,” said Mr Sellgren at this week’s Place Scrutiny committee.

Councillors heard that complaints to his department had risen by more than 10 per cent in three months.

A total of 103 complaints have been made during the period– up from 90 during the previous three months. Of these 54 have been dealt with as formal complaints and eight of these escalated to the Local Government Ombudsman. The majority are said to be about a perceived lack of, delay to, or dissatisfaction with levels of service.

The biggest area of the complaints, 43, were about highways; followed by 33 on planning issues; 13 for environment and wellbeing; 9 for customer services; 4 for Travel Dorset and 2 for assets and property. The community and public protection team was the only area not to receive any complaints.

A total of 12 per cent of the complaints received were found to be fully or partially justified.

During the same period the department received 28 compliments, down from 34 in the previous period.

A report says that of the complaints resulted in 14 ‘learning points’ which will help staff perform better in future or result in changes to procedures.

Tony Bygrave, senior assurance officer, said he was ‘relaxed’ about the number of complaints, including the more serious ones which may be considered by the ombudsman.

“It is on benefit to have the independent eye of the ombudsman and we shouldn’t be afraid of that..we do need to be a learning organisation,” he said.

Cllr Robin Cook welcomed the report. He said that by keeping people informed about how their complaints were being dealt with, even if not able to provide a full answer immediately, went a long way towards people believing that they were being treated seriously.