RANTS on Twitter don’t get counted as official complaints, a council committee was told.

At a meeting of Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council’s Governance and Audit committee on Tuesday, December 7, members looked at a report showing the number of complaints made by residents against departments over a six-month period, from April 1 to September 30.

Complaints about councillors are dealt with separately.

Between April and the end of June, a total of 22 complaints were made – 21 of these were dealt with internally by the department, with only one escalated to be investigated by the council’s legal team.

Of these 22 complaints, 11 were upheld.

From July to the end of September a total of 29 complaints were made, and all were dealt with internally by the departments. Sixteen complaints were upheld.

Blaenau Gwent’s head of legal and corporate compliance and monitoring officer,  Andrea Jones said: “Happily, most complaints are resolved with the complainant by the department themselves without going any further.

“I think the key information is those complaints that were upheld, as there was something that fell short of the normal standards.

“That suggests to me that departments aren’t brushing them under the carpet.

“They are looking at the substance of the complaints and actually being honest whether there was a shortcoming – that’s an indication of a good process.

“I would be concerned if there were none upheld.”

Independent member Martin Veale asked how complaints are lodged.

“Is a complaint someone ranting on Twitter or is there a formal process with a form on the website somewhere?” asked Mr Veale.

Ms Jones said: “We have a process on the website, each department has its own complaints officer and identifying what is a complaint is an important basic in the training.”

She added that someone writing in saying they were “unhappy” with something would also be classified as a complaint.

But Cllr Lisa Winnett said she didn’t believe the report contained all the information, especially complaints made by councillors on behalf of individual or groups of residents.

Cllr Winnett said: “Some residents are unable to or don’t have the skills to follow the corporate complaint route and they ask us to represent them, we’re not getting a true picture at all.”

Cllr Winnett also believed that councillors need to know why complaints are upheld to “help improve” running of the council.

Cllr Wayne Hodgins said: “I have never seen in any budget information provided on the levels of compensation we’ve had to pay out, where is that information held?

“It could have a knock-on effect and impact services.”

Ms Jones said that “substantial” amounts of compensation would need to be reported by departments as part of the quarterly and end of year financial statements.

Cllr John C Morgan said: “I wonder if we should have information on awards above £300 or £500, we need to know the reasons why.”

The council’s audit and risk manager, Louise Rosser said that figures showing how much claims had cost could be included in future reports “but no specific details” of the individual claims could be given.

At the end of the item, councillors agreed that areas of concern in the report had been highlighted and discussed.