The Transformation and Improvement Overview and Scrutiny Committee of Shropshire Council met on 8 September 2025 to discuss the annual customer feedback report, financial monitoring, and performance monitoring, as well as proposals for the committee's work programme for 2025-2026. The committee was also scheduled to receive public and member questions. Reports on financial and performance monitoring for Quarter 1 2025/26, and financial monitoring for Period 4 were expected to be presented, but were not included in the report pack.

Annual Customer Feedback Report

The committee was scheduled to review Shropshire Council's performance in handling complaints, and consider improvements required by the end of March 2026, in accordance with the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman's Complaint Handling Code. The report summarised performance in the context of the Complaint Handling Code introduced by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman for implementation by the end of March 2026. The annual report included a self-assessment against the Code.

The report stated that the Ombudsman's Code requires significant changes across a number of areas. It also stated that organisations are strongly discouraged from setting targets in relation to complaint handling, but the Ombudsman does recommend use of a new set of Key Performance Indicators.

The report included data on:

• complaint numbers
• timeliness
• outcomes
• learning from complaints and remedies

Complaint Numbers

The report stated that Shropshire Council received and recorded 3,079 cases of formal feedback in 2024/25, including 2,386 initial complaint cases, 245 comments, and 448 compliments. It noted a 17% increase in cases compared to the previous year. The report stated that a significant number of people attempted to raise complaints anonymously, which cannot be investigated. The report stated that there is a need to improve initial triage to ensure that as many initial contacts as possible are addressed as service requests and complaints are not raised as an initial form of contact.

The report stated that Highways and Transport complaints traditionally form a large proportion of all complaints and in 2024/25 formed 14% of all Shropshire Council's complaints. It also stated that Children's social work case management, SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities) and adult social care complaints are among areas of service nationally where there are growing demands and pressures leading to complaints.

The report noted an 11.6% increase since 2023/24 in complaints progressing beyond stage 1¹.

Timeliness

The report stated that the new timescales for responding to complaints set out in the Code are intended to encourage prompt and efficient complaint handling.

The report included a table illustrating the timescale changes required by the Code:

The report stated that during 2024/25 Shropshire Council took an average of 23 working days to respond to stage 1 corporate complaints, exceeding the new Code stage 1 timescale.

Outcomes

The report stated that the outcomes of complaints are an important measure of the quality of complaint handling in an organisation and data can be used to identify areas where repeat findings may indicate wider issues which need to be addressed.

The report stated that under the Code a new outcome is being introduced: Resolved, which is defined as:

The organisation was able to agree action it should take with the complainant to resolve the complaint and did not have to investigate further to decide whether it acted with fault

The report stated that of the closed stage 1 complaints 22% were upheld, 23% were partially upheld and 42% were not upheld. It also stated that considering the complaints that were upheld (all stages closed within the year), 21% were with Highways and Transport, 18% were for Special Educational Needs and Disability within Learning and Skills, 14% Adult Social Care Operations - Community and 9% were with Waste Management.

Learning from complaints and remedies

The report stated that within the new Code, the LGSCO highlights that remedies should be provided within timescales provided to complainants, and that failure to do this may lead to further complaints.

The report stated that Shropshire Council recorded learning, action or outcome notes against 705 complaints in 2024/25, and that currently around 40% of all partly upheld or upheld closed cases have learning recorded.

The report also included benchmarking data, comparing Shropshire Council to similar local authorities within the Chartered Institute of Public Finance Accountancy (CIPFA) statistical neighbours group, covering total number of complaints, upheld rate and complaints per 100,000 population.

The report made a number of recommendations, including:

• Providing a more detailed report covering the LGSCO Complaint Handling Code
• Reviewing Shropshire Council's corporate complaints procedure
• Developing guidance on remedies and reasonable adjustments
• Focusing on service request responses and response quality
• Implementing new national performance measures

Work Programme

The committee was scheduled to consider proposals for its work programme for 2025 – 2026. According to the Transformation and Improvement Overview and Scrutiny Committee High-Level Work Programme – 2025/2026, the committee may discuss Artificial Intelligence (AI), strategic partnership working, review of scrutiny, CIL dispersion², Shirehall³, and the North West Relief Road.