Children's services complaints rise by 37%
BBCComplaints about a council's children's services department rose 37% over a 12-month period, with the authority partly attributing the increase to the ease of people using AI to draft their criticisms.
Complaints about the unit at Stockton Borough Council, on Teesside, went up from 117 in 2024-5 to 160 in 2025-6.
A meeting of the authority's children and young people select committee this week heard communication and information sharing were cited as the main problems - for example not being able to contact social workers or not having calls returned.
Information governance manager Gemma Jackson said people were now "more likely to complain" with AI "playing its part".
She said the rise reflected a trend seen "across the board" with other local authorities and "not just in children's services".
The same 12-month period saw complaints about social work teams at the council increase from 68 to 104, with criticisms about special educational needs going up from 17 to 28.
'The world we live in'
"In terms of the complexity of decisions we're making, the cases coming forward, the demand is higher, therefore the complaints are going to increase as well," Jackson told the meeting.
"We have an opportunity to put it right, make improvements and reduce the likelihood of it happening again.
"So numbers of complaints alone are not an indication that we have failings.
"How we put it right is the main emphasis here."
Councillor Ray Godwin told committee members he had heard people "complain about everything now" with AI.
"It's the world we live in, isn't it?" he said.
"You can speak into your phone and artificial intelligence will write a very good complaint in very little time.
"I don't think these figures are as damning as what you first see or imagine, bearing in mind how many people are involved in the system, the pressures the systems are under and the work the councils do to try and address some of those pressures."
Children's services director Majella McCarthy said every complaint received was "taken seriously and investigated".
Acknowledging some areas of the department were "really pressured", she told councillors there was now "a much more stable workforce" with the number of agency workers being used having "significantly reduced".
