In its last published annual report (2021-22) the NSW Ombudsman’s office received a total of 5,746 complaints concerning government departments/agencies including further education facilities, local health districts and icare.
Service NSW had the highest number of complaints (959), followed DCJ Housing (956), Land and Housing Corporation (374), Roads and Maritime (364) and Ministry of Health (100).
In addition the Ombudsman also received 2,405 actionable complaints about local government councils, including 2 complaints about county councils.
With Clarence Valley Council being first in the Top 10 councils with the most finalised actionable complaints per 100,00 head of population (89) even though it tied for last place on that same chart for the actual number of finalised actionable complaints (46). Central Coast Council was the dubious Top 10 winner on the basis of actual number of finalised actionable complaints received which reached 158.
Actionable complaints about these 10 councils - Central Coast Council, Canterbury-Bankstown Council, Northern Beaches Council, Georges River Council, Sutherland Shire Council, Mid-Coast Council, Blacktown City Council, Lake Macquarie City Council, Clarence Valley Council, Inner West Council - represent 29% of all the local government actionable complaints the Ombudsman finalised in 2021-22.
The most frequently raised issues in actionable
complaints about councils were:
- standards of customer service;
- complaint-handling processes;
- council enforcement action;
- charges and fees; and
- merits/reasoning of council decisions when they are exercising their discretion in accordance with policy or in a statutory setting.
What that paragraph appears to be indicating that complaints about development applications and in Chamber decisions concerning development still feature prominently in the annual complaints profile as they have for at least the last two decades.
The Clarence Valley Independent was told by a Local Government NSW spokesperson that despite serving the same population, the state’s 128 councils recorded fewer than half the number of complaints made about the state government.
