Complainers encouraged by council to become street leaders

Lady Wilcox's Citizen's Charter Complaints Task Force is halfway through its two-year investigation into how public services handle complaints. Its interim report highlighted the recognition that a high level of complaints is not necessarily a bad thing as this can be used to improve service.

Different areas of the public sector are turning complaints into a virtue in different ways.

- The Child Benefit Centre in Newcastle has a complaints section on every payment form. All complaints are categorised and logged on the computer, and from this the centre can see where customers' biggest problems are occurring. So successful has this been that other local organisations, including Newcastle Law Courts, are looking at ways of adopting the system.
- In Lewisham, South London, regular complainers have been encouraged to become street leaders who are used as a local focus for neighbourhood relations with the direct services.