The way that Calderdale Council receives and deals with complaints and compliments is being discussed by the Council’s Cabinet.
Members will review a report providing an overview of the handling of complaints and compliments to the Council from April 2024 to March 2025.
Each year, Calderdale Council manages hundreds of thousands of interactions with residents across many channels, including face-to-face, telephone, online and email. These cover everything from everyday enquiries to complex requests and critical service needs. While formal complaints make up only a small proportion of this overall contact, they provide valuable insight into how services can be improved.
Over the last 12 months, the Council investigated just over 200 formal complaints, of which around half were upheld. Almost 60% were resolved within 10 days, showing an improvement in response times from the previous year.
This year marks the first stage of a national pilot introducing a new two-stage complaints process, ahead of its full rollout in 2026. The approach is designed to give people more opportunities to have issues resolved quickly and fairly at a local level. The pilot, run in partnership with the Local Government Ombudsman, aims to ensure complaints are dealt with consistently and thoroughly.
Alongside this, new training has been introduced to support complaint investigators, with a focus on resolving issues early and fairly in line with national guidance. Further training is in development to help prevent complaints in the first place, by improving customer service and aiming to ‘get it right first time’, in line with the Customer Experience Framework | Calderdale Council(external link).
To build on this work, Cabinet will also be asked to approve a new complaints improvement plan, setting out how learning from feedback will be embedded across all Council services.
The report also highlights positive feedback from residents. The Council received almost 450 compliments in the last year — a notable increase on previous years. Compliments are shared to celebrate good practice and highlight the compassionate, person-centred approach of Council staff. Work is underway to ensure that learning from compliments is used alongside complaints to further improve services.
Calderdale Council’s Deputy Leader, Cllr Scott Patient, said:
“The handling of complaints is so important and a vital tool in ensuring fair, inclusive, and accessible services.
“We know we don’t always get it right, but when things don’t go as planned, we want to learn from any mistakes. We also understand that delays can make a frustrating situation worse, and it’s one of our priorities to resolve complaints quickly – something which has improved over the last year.
“I’m delighted that we’ve seen a surge in compliments over the last year, demonstrating the care and compassion of our dedicated staff and how people really value our services. We’re making sure that as well as learning from complaints, we also look at how we can apply learning from compliments, highlighting success to support staff and services across the Council.”
The Complaints and Compliments Annual Report 2024/25 will be discussed at the meeting of Calderdale Council’s Cabinet on Monday 1 September at Halifax Town Hall, from 4pm. The meeting can also be watched online at https://calderdale.public-i.tv/core/portal/home(external link)