Lewisham Council paid out £49,185.24 in financial remedies for upheld complaints during the 2025/26 financial year, according to the Draft Annual Complaints Report.
The report, presented to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee, detailed that the council's target for responding to complaints within set timescales was not met, with Stage One responses at 87.5% and Stage Two at 56%. The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) investigated 52 complaints about the council, with an upheld rate of 87%.
Key areas for improvement identified in the report include the triage and classification of incoming contacts, the quality and timeliness of responses, and learning from complaint data. The report also highlighted that a significant number of formal complaints were misclassified service requests, inflating complaint numbers. This misclassification distorts escalation rates and leads to inefficient use of resources by directing service requests through the formal complaints process.
The primary reasons for the council failing to meet its target timescales for complaint responses at both Stage One and Stage Two are multifaceted. The report notes that Many complaints are not complaints in line with the Corporate Complaints Policy which can be seen when reviewing the reasons for complaints and reasons for complaints.
Furthermore, Service requests have routinely been wrongly recorded as complaints across all services, inflating complaints volumes.
The Place
directorate, which has the highest volume of complaints, has a significant number of complaints classified as 'resolved upon receipt' (48%), suggesting that many of these are service requests that should not have been logged as formal complaints. When complaints do escalate to Stage Two, the report indicates that there are disagreements with decision making, delay in response, inadequate explanations and a failure to respond to the complaint in full.
To address these issues, Lewisham Council is implementing several initiatives to improve the triage and classification of incoming contacts. A Corporate Inquiries Transformation Project
aims to clarify the distinction between service requests, complaints, member enquiries, FOIs, and SARs. This involves better staff training and clearer guidance on complaint definitions, with amended templates and meetings with services already underway. The council is also refining mandatory fields in its systems to ensure more accurate categorisation of enquiries, moving away from vague options like service request
or dissatisfied with something
towards more specific classifications. The potential use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for triage was also discussed as a tool to assist with these processes, with an acknowledgement of its benefits and the need for careful management.
The council's strategy for ensuring that learning from complaint data leads to tangible improvements in service delivery is comprehensive. The report emphasises using complaint data to identify trends, drive service improvements, and prevent recurring issues, including learning from LGSCO decisions and recommendations. A new Key Performance Indicator (KPI) for tracking learning is planned for introduction next year, which will report on how the council has learned from complaints and aims for lower escalation rates. Service improvement plans are expected, with a focus on examining customer journeys to identify opportunities for quicker resolution and preventing future escalations. Regular meetings with all services are being held to discuss complaint learning, and training programmes are being rolled out for officers on casework, the distinction between service requests and complaints, and best practices for responses.
Furthermore, the Complaints Management process will incorporate a specific learning outcome section for managers to complete when complaints are closed. Where complaints are upheld or partially upheld, any learning outcomes and service improvements will be recorded and monitored. The most common lessons learned to date have been in regard to improving communication and preventing service failure before it escalates into a formal complaint.
The Draft Annual Complaints Report was presented to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee, as detailed in the Public reports pack. Further details on previous meeting minutes can be found in the Minutes of Previous Meeting.