Shock rise in complaints may just be the start

It's a fact of life that the more a business lets its customers down, the more they complain.
There's a period where people mutter and moan a lot, but once the complaining starts, an avalanche is sure to follow.
Sadly this seems to be the case with Boston Borough Council.
A report to this evening's Audit Panel says that the communications team has received, logged, acknowledged and referred a total of 53 formal complaints between April and June - almost double the 27 complaints received for the same period last year.The lion's share of complaints at 20 concerned the closure of the training pool at the Geoff Moulder Leisure Pool with another one about the state of facilities at GMLP itself.
This was followed by 16 complaints concerning housing/council tax benefit.Car parks/parking enforcement and the behaviour of members of staff each generated three complaints, bin collection and the Broadfield Lane allotments two, and one each for the failure to stop a shop littering, the Butterfly Hospice works, poor service from housing contractors, delay in replying to a Freedom of Information request , non-domestic rates and a housing bid.The report tried to sweeten the pill by claiming that the right to complain was more widely promoted in the spring after something called an Equality Impact Assessment into the service. This highlighted the need to promote the right to complain and as a result the council has put up posters in council receptions and encouraged people to make their views known by providing comment cards.
Frankly we doubt that this would have caused complaints to rise by almost 100%The report says complaints can be a useful source of information about how others see the council, and how the authority is serving its customers.
What a statement of the obvious.
The fact is that the figures show a ruling party becoming further and further estranged from the people it laughingly claims to "serve."
Through no fault of their own we also have to add a demoralised staff uncertain about their future to the recipe, and the scene is set for things to get worse rather than better.
It's more than a month since Acting Chief Executive Richard Harbord began his six month stint at the borough's helm, and shortly after he spoke of the possibility of more job losses as well a reorganisation of the management structure.
Mr Harbord is now around 20% into his time here, and we hope that he will soon made a public pronouncement on his plans so that taxpayers and staff can get a sense of the direction he plans for the borough.

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