Compliments, Complaints & Comments

ELECTORAL PERFORMANCE

Complaints

No formal complaints were received during this period. The elections team do log informal complaints

against the service it provides - this helps us learn from possible mistakes and provide a better service. Complaints are categorised as follows:

Year	Poor Service	Staff Conduct	Council Policy	Other
2012 Police & Crime Commissioner Election	4	1	0	0
2011 Referendum & full District and Parish Elections	4	2	1	1
2010 Parliamentary General Election	2	3	0	1
2009 County & European Elections	6	2	0	2
2008 No Elections	0	0	0	1
2007 District & Parish Elections	5	1	0	0

All such complaints are investigated by the Electoral Manager and appropriate action taken in order to prevent future problems. Complaints allow us to review our procedures. For example where a customer receives poor service this may be identified as a training issue so we can address a problem and learn from our mistakes.

Compliments and Comments

Each year during the Autumn annual canvass some 9,000 forms are processed with amendments and during 2011 just four complaints were raised, out of 45,500 forms hand delivered to all households. Two complaints involved one canvasser during the difficult door-knocking stage and this has been addressed as a training issue.

Compliments exceed complaints, and during the year, six e-mailed comments were received thanking staff for their speedy response and helpfulness during the year. No record is kept of verbal messages of thanks.

One constructive comment was received about the operation of the electronic canvass registration service about introducing a shortcut for speedier registration for no changes, this has been passed to our software supplier to consider.

Once again very positive feedback on use of the electronic means of registering were received e.g.

"Thank you for making it so easy to return the required information back to the Council, your site is very user friendly".

"Excellent and so easy to register on-line".

During every election each elector received either a poll card or a postal voters poll card - some 84,000 contacts with our 45,000 households and 10,000 postal vote packs sent out.

Again during 2012, four complaints were during the annual canvass and one at a by-election and yet again, more than twice as many compliments were received.

As you can see from the table above, most complaints occur in busy electoral years.

Example comments include:

"Thank you for your incredibly useful reply - I'm very happy to hear that I can vote after all". E-mailed comment April 2010 during the Parliamentary election concerning an overseas elector's query.

"That’s brilliant, many thanks for your help". E-mailed comment about helping an elector get register during the May 2011 elections.

"South Staffordshire has always provided excellent electoral services in my view and continues to do so. Well done". Comment on customer survey form - issued to a random sample of voters - after the 2011 elections.

"Training provided (to polling staff by the Electoral Services Manager) easier to understand than in previous years and more concise. Better visual demonstrations and examples." Training session feedback sheet - April 2011.

If you have any concerns, comments, complaints or compliments we want to hear from you.

We also want to hear from you if you feel you have been treated unfairly.