Dudley councillors’ casework backlog left cases unanswered

Dudley Council received 6,000 casework reports from councillors in the last year and responded to just a third on time.

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The whopping workload was less than neighbouring Sandwell Council which got 9,228 reports from its elected members but responded to 71 percent on time.

Dudley has a service level agreement (SLA) to respond to a report within 40 days but between April 2025 and May 2026 just 33 percent were answered within the agreed period.

The council introduced a dedicated team of administrators to tackle a backlog of cases and in June, Cllr Ed Lawrence, Dudley cabinet member for transformation, announced a recovery team had been established to speed up how casework was handled.

Since June 2026 the backlog of outstanding cases had been cut from 1,718 to 1,009 while the average time cases remain open has fallen from 232 days to 139 days.

The data is revealed in a new report on how the council deals with councillors’ casework which also says three quarters of reports each week were related to the environment service area.

The report said: “Exceptionally wet, cold and icy weather led to a significant increase in requests for grit bin refills, a harsh winter resulted in a rise in pothole reports requiring investigation and repair.

“The introduction of the new waste service created several operational challenges, including vehicle breakdowns, delays in delivering new bins, and disruption to collection schedules over a number of weeks.”

The report highlights a number of reasons for the backlog build up including rising demand from new councillors having increasing engagement with communities and ‘capacity challenges’.

The report said: “Demand consistently exceeded available resources, impacting the service’s ability to fulfil requests and respond to councillor casework, leading to a growing backlog.”

A report of potholes from Cllr Ryan Priest remained open for an eye-watering 543 days which included what the report describes as ‘extended periods without substantive updates’.

Despite the work being completed in February 2026, around a year after the case was raised, the matter was not closed until August 2026 because of a dependency in the system on a manual follow-up after the repairs were carried out.

The report said: “The service operates with two highway inspectors covering the borough and two permanent staff responsible for managing complaints and enquiries.”

The council says it has introduced a range of improvements to the process and system for dealing with casework plus a new online pothole reporting portal called Mystreet.Dudley.

Despite the improvements and new technology, the authority still needs a personal touch according to one senior councillor.

Dudley Labour leader, Cllr Shaukat Ali, said: “There are some cases which are straightforward, for example a pothole, but there are some issues that are much more complicated and you need that conversation to be able to put your case across.

“Sometimes through email or the casework app you might not be able to give the fuller explanation of what the issue is and to bounce ideas off each other.”