\n Complaints against the authority, often now using AI, have soared by more than 230 per cent, with staff struggling to keep up.\n<\/p>\n
\n The latest figures show 2,400 complaints in 25\/26, compared to under 800 five years ago.\n<\/p>\n
\n There has been a similar, but less steep, increase in the number of Freedom of Information requests, also powered by residents using AI.\n<\/p>\n
\n Councillors have been told that not only are there more complaints, but they are longer, more complex and often written in \u2018aggressive\u2019 language. There are now so many of them that it takes up all the time of one council officer just to input them into the council\u2019s system.\n<\/p>\n
\n Senior officers say that the surge has become counter-productive and it wants to limit official complaints to only those using the authority\u2019s e-form, rather than submitting complaints by email.\n<\/p>\n
\n That move has worried some councillors: Cllr Andy Todd from Wimborne and Colehill, said instead of effectively reducing the channels of communication open to the public it should bolster and support the hard-pressed team dealing with the complaints: \u201cI\u2019m uncomfortable about the idea; I know it\u2019s common, many have removed email contact points\u2026 but I am more inclined to say we should support the team and also the complainant, using AI. There will be a time when we are entirely digital, but we\u2019re not there yet and we need to respond appropriately.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Blackmore Vale Cllr Steve Murcer said it was the trend in the numbers which concerns him, with the likelihood of the council being overwhelmed by AI-generated complaints, and rather than learning from complaints and making changes it would be spending its time just dealing with the volume : \u201cWhat you are saying is we can\u2019t put things right because we are too busy dealing with complaints,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n
\n The move to only accepting complaints on the council\u2019s e-form was supported by the audit and governance committee \u2013 after an assurance from complaints manager Tony Bygrave that the authority would still accept other means, including by phone, for people who were, genuinely, unable to deal with the online form. He said the move to e-form only followed the best practice model from the Ombudsman, who dealt with council complaints where residents felt they had been unfairly treated by complaint decisions. He told councillors that only a small number of those complaints were upheld.\n<\/p>\n
\n The change will also allow the council to reduce complaints to what it considers are the key points and to only respond to those.\n<\/p>\n
\n Said Mr Bygrave: \u201cWe are following the Ombudsman\u2019s lead. Those who email in bypass all our systems \u2026 it\u2019s not tenable: we need to provide outcomes and keep the door open.\u00a0 What people often want is help but what AI does is quite aggressive and weaponises complaints\u2026 it\u2019s causing delays.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n He said that by using the e-form complainants should get a quicker response, rather than by using email, which, he said sees them waiting longer for a response.\n<\/p>\n
\n Council senior legal officer Jonathan Mair backed the claim that the current position is untenable, adding that he had seen some complaints where 400 other people had been copies in.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWhat we really want to do is learn from complaints and put it right. Having an e- form is not a universal panacea but it helps \u2013 giving a clear and concise ways of dealing with complaints,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n
\n In backing the move for e-form only complaints the committee asked for a further report on how the change is working in six months\u2019 time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Complaints against the authority, often now using AI, have soared by more than 230 per cent, with staff…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":558807,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-558806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=558806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/558807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}