More than 300 formal complaints were made against Crawley Borough Council in 2024/25.
The figures, which did not include those made to the Housing Ombudsman, were shared during a meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Commission on Monday (June 23).
They showed that waste and recycling topped the list of stage one complaints, followed by housing options, neighbourhood services, parking, and planning.
The council runs a two-stage complaint system, its policy aligned with that of both the Housing Ombudsman and the Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman.
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Stage one complaints are dealt with by the relevant service manager.
If the customer is not happy, they can escalate the complaint to stage two, which is dealt with by the head of service.
After that, the issue can be escalated to the ombudsman. Only two complaints were taken that far, one of which – a planning complaint – was upheld.
As for the decisions made by the council itself, 11 per cent of the 271 stage one complaints were upheld, meaning the authority had failed to follow procedures correctly or provide the level of service expected.
Another 41 per cent were partly upheld, meaning some things were not done correctly, and 38 per cent were not upheld.
Of the 31 stage two complaints, 13 per cent were upheld, 49 per cent were partly upheld, and 35 per cent were not upheld.
Poor communication was by far the main reason for complaints being either fully or partially upheld, followed by customer service and delays.
The meeting was told that time needed to be allowed to speak to people more and to give them a more realistic idea of how long things would take.
One officer said: “You can appreciate that some service areas are experiencing a lot of high demand and sometimes that goes out of the window a little bit. We’re aware of it and we do what we can to keep on it.”
Tim Lunnon (Lab, Broadfield) said: “Overall, our management of complaints seems to be relatively healthy and open and transparent.”
