Dorset Council urged to be careful on how it deals with persistent complainers
A dozen residents are under special measures list for bombarding councillors and officers with messages
Last updated 19th Jan 2024
Dorset Council has been warned, in the light of the Post Office scandal, that it should be careful in how it deals with persistent complainers.
A dozen residents are currently under ‘special measures’ for constantly bombarding councillors or officers with messages.
One is said to be sending up to a dozen emails every day.
The council deals with this by only allowing the person considered to be vexatious in their actions towards the council, to be given only a single point of contact, following warnings about their behaviour.
Some are said to be persistently abusive, or potentially violent.
In most cases the step of adding a name to what is known as “the schedule” is taken only after all other methods to seek a solution have been exhausted. When a new name is added the local councillor is told in case the complainer switches their attention to them.
Sherborne councillor Robin Legg has warned that, in light of the Post Office scandal, which involved persistent complainers the council ought to be careful about how it applies the policy and the dangers of what he described as “group think” from the authority.
He said that a resident in his area has been on the schedule since 2019 having been aggrieved about a decision from the former Dorset County Council about drains to and from his property which, he claimed, had been adversely affected by nearby highways works many years before.
“Having looked at this over four and a half years I now think he was probably right”, said Cllr Legg.
“It may be that some people become vexatious, in the eyes of the council, because we don’t sit down and actually listen to them. Maybe we should have a bit more subtlety about how we approach people who have got a bee in their bonnet. If you think about it carefully, they might just have a point.”
He told a council audit and governance committee that the outcome for his resident, after exhausting all possible avenues of appeal, was that he was told by the Local Government Ombudsman the only recourse left was to sue the council – something he could not, possibly, afford to do.