Complaints about public services have soared by more than a third since 2016 with substantial jumps in relation to benefits, prisons, the NHS and higher education, according to a leading thinktank.
Demos, a cross-party organisation, found that between 2015-16 and 2023-24 complaints across key public services increased steadily by evermore than 100,000 from 309,758 to 425,624 – aside from a sharp drop during the pandemic.
It said complaints about the Department for Work and Pensions doubled over this period, and those about higher education rose by 70%.
The thinktank released the findings ahead of the publication of its year-long taskforce study into the future of public services with a final report launching this week, saying that politicians urgently need to embrace reform to rebuild trust.
It found NHS written complaints rose during the period by 20% to 241,922, doubled at DWP to 120,509 and were up 94% in prisons and probation to 4,575. In higher education, they rose 69% to 3,137.
Areas where complaints were broadly flat were local government at 15,438 and social care at 2,982.
Alongside the data, the Demos report will call for the running of public services to be devolved away from central government to give communities greater flexibility and discretion over methods of delivery.
Speaking about the complaints data, Polly Curtis, chief executive of Demos, said: “At their very worst, public services feel like a battleground, in which citizens feel they have to fight to get what they need. It’s not helping people, it’s horrible for those who work in public services and it’s happening at a time when public sector productivity is declining. It also adds to the rising sense of distrust in the state and politicians.
“The solution is to engage with citizens, communities and local leaders to fundamentally change the way that we deliver public services, building stronger relationships between those that use public services and those that run them. Our taskforce has found that if we liberate frontline professionals and devolve power to local places – with appropriate accountability measures in place – we can build better services and rebuild trust between politicians and the public.”
The report argues that getting public sector productivity back to pre-pandemic levels requires a new model of “liberated” service delivery in which frontline workers are given more power, flexibility and discretion over how they help people.
Its analysis estimates that if public services were to be returned to their pre-pandemic productivity levels by 2033 this would deliver £41bn in additional output a year.
It highlighted an idea called the “liberated method”, developed by Changing Futures Northumbria in Gateshead, which gives greater freedom to caseworkers as long as they follow two broad rules: “stay legal” and “do no harm”.
The taskforce was advised by experts including Victor Adebowale, chair of the NHS Confederation, Simone Finn, former deputy chief of staff to Boris Johnson, Patricia Hewitt, former Labour health secretary, and Jonathan Slater, former permanent secretary at the Department for Education.
It is due to be launched at a future public services summit later this week, addressed by Georgia Gould, the minister for public services reform.
Since taking office, Keir Starmer has made clear one of his priorities is fixing crumbling public services, accusing the last Conservative governments of overseeing a decline in standards.
He has faced a crisis in prisons, with not enough spaces in jails and prisoners being released earlier in their sentences, and huge waiting lists in the health service, exacerbated by Covid.
However, the data shows complaints about many public services were rising even before the pandemic.
Last week, Starmer said he was prepared to reform public services to get improvements, alongside investing more money in them.
“Given the unprecedented challenges we have inherited we will not achieve this by simply doing more of the same which is why investment comes alongside a programme of innovation and reform,” he said.
In response to the report, Gould said: “After the last 14 years, people are too often left feeling like they are going into battle when using public services.
“This government has a relentless focus on delivering for people. We won’t make policy in a closed room in Whitehall but in partnership with communities and those delivering services on the frontline.
“We will get behind the public sector innovators and give them the tools and support they need to put people first.”
