Issue - meetings

This report contains information on council complaints, including those from the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

The Committee received a report containing information on council complaints, including those from the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

The following matters were considered:

a)            Complaint Report. Members of the Committee expressed their thanks to the Chair and officers that this report was added to the agenda.

b)            Complaints Process. A Member of the Committee asked if the case referenced in paragraph 3.3.6 on page 103, involved a failure of the complaint handling process. The Interim Director of Corporate Services confirmed that there was a failure of the complaint handling process, as the complaint was not acted up in a timely enough manner from when it was received and therefore, it escalated to a stage two complaint. The Interim Director of Corporate Services informed the Committee that the wider learning gained through this case was to make sure that the focus is on dealing with complaints in a timely manner so that they do get a response and don't needlessly escalate to stage two, but also going back to customers to manage expectations and keep them up to date with the status of their complaint if more time is needed to provide a full and helpful response, this emphasis on communication and timeliness is being rolled out in the training.

c)            Access to Complaint details. A Member of the Committee asked if Members of the Committee were allowed access to the details of the complaint or complainant. The Interim Director of Corporate Services informed the Committee that there must be care taken when discussing individual cases and highlighted that the Local Government Ombudsman anonymise information when publishing on their website so that cases cannot be identified. The Interim Director of Corporate Services continued to explain that there is no issue sharing the information with the relevant Ward Councillor about the case in question outside of the Committee Meeting.

d)            Tracking response times. A Member of the Committee asked if the response times for stage one and two complaints will be tracked and recorded. The Interim Director of Corporate Services confirmed to the Committee that response times for complaints will be tracked and recorded going forwards, and explained that the LGO is currently consulting on a new complaint handling code, where there will certainly be an expectation that as Local Authority, we will have the data regarding complaint response times, as well as sharing the learning of our complaints.

Following consideration, the Committee unanimously resolved to:

(1)      Note and comment on the complaint’s information provided in report.