Waste and recycling the cause of most complaints from Solihull residents

Waste and recycling collections attracted the most council complaints from Solihull residents, new figures show. But in good news the overall number of complaints to Solihull Council reduced between 2023 and 2024, councillors heard.

In total there were 628 complaints received for the period - one fewer than the previous years. The service areas provided by the council which received the complaints were:

• Waste and recycling - 201

• Parking services - 79

• Customer and cultural services - 64

• Income and awards - 61

• Streetcare - 58

• Highway infrastructure - 46

• Planning and building control - 28

• Parks - 15

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The 201 waste and recycling complaints are broken down into sections and show the majority of them, 190, were on household waste and recycling collections. Six of the complaints were on bulky waste available collections while visitors to household waste recycling centre made up five complaints.

The categories of complaints were also broken down. At the latest meeting of the resources and delivering value scrutiny board Angie Pretty, the authority's head of customer, bereavement and registration, explained: “Whilst there were no significant outstanding themes for complaints this year, service delivery at 64 per cent and how we applied policy, a decision or procedure at 19 per cent were the main categories customers chose to complain about.” The officer said 81 per cent of complaints were responded to within 20 days and overall 98 per cent of complaints within the maximum 30 days.

The figures also reveal that of the 628 complaints - 368 complaints were resolved in 15 days; 143 were resolved in 16 to 20 days. 107 took 21 to 30 days to resolve while there were 10 complaints which were resolved over 30 days.

The officer also highlighted the Local Government Ombudsman investigated nine corporate complaints of which none were upheld. “They felt we had given a full resolution or response,” she added.

Coun Kathryn Thomas said she wanted to praise the planning and building control team - which deals with planning applications, building control applications, initial notices - as officers had recognised it had worked “really hard on matters of customer service and expectations” which had helped bring the number of complaints down. “They have clearly done something really positive,” Coun Thomas said.

“I don’t know if there is learning that can be shared with other departments.” Ms Pretty replied: “I will share the comment - they have worked really hard. We are using them as our example.”

The figures were discussed at the board meeting which took place at the Civic Suite on November 11.