Millicent Spencer
Hume and Whittlesea have been named by the Victorian Ombudsman as the second and fourth most complained about councils respectively.
The Ombudsman’s 2021-22 report reveals Hume received 155 complaints and Whittlesea received 119 complaints in the last financial year.
Thirty-three complaints were made about Hume council’s handling of complaints, while 24 related to fines, 18 were about enforcement action and 16 were for financial reasons.
Thirty-eight of the complaints about Whittlesea council were about fines, 19 related to complaints handling, 16 were about correspondence and communications and 14 related to council’s decision making.
Hume mayor Joseph Haweil said the report from the Ombudsman highlights the work and improvements his council needs to make.
“We very much welcome the process by which people follow if they feel council hasn’t responded in a way they would like,” he said.
“A lot [of complaints] were about complaint handling processes … for me a take out is that I am going to go back to council management to [discuss] optimising our services.
“We will learn from it and do better.”
In Hume the Ombudsman made enquiries on 19 per cent (or approximately 29 complaints) of the cases, meaning they worked with council to assess and resolve the issue.
Cr Haweil said while he would prefer to see no complaints, the 30 complaints into which the Ombudsman made inquiries were relatively low for a rapidly growing municipality.
“We’re one of the biggest councils…. and if I take that 30 figure into the greater scheme of things it’s a very small number compared to the size of our council and our number of residents.”
Broadmeadows Progress Association’s Sonja Rutherford said the Hume’s position as the second most complained about council is bittersweet.
“This shows that people in Hume are going to take up our democratic right to raise our opinion,” she said.
“We’re very much aware of changes of policy and actions that occur in our area [and] shows you there are a lot of people that are feeling connected to the area.
“However, it also shows people don’t know by what criteria [council] are arriving at these decisions.”
Ms Rutherford said after reporting several issues in the past to council she believes there is a disconnect in the complaints process.
“There can be better processes for addressing complaints,” she said.
Whittlesea chair administrator Lydia Wilson said the number of complaints relative to population size of the municipality is relatively low.
“We take any complaint very seriously and regard it as an opportunity to continually improve our practices and procedures,” she said.
“The highest volume of issues in Whittlesea were in relation to fines/ infringements’, which requires customers to formally appeal to council in writing for the matter to be considered.
“Council has introduced an easy-to-use online appeals portal as part of our comprehensive appeals process. Complainants who don’t wish to put their appeal in writing are referred to the Ombudsman.
“We are committed to providing an excellent standard of service and if we fall short, or make a mistake, we encourage our customers to contact us directly so we can resolve the issue promptly.”
