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Issue - meetings
Annual Complaints Report 2017/18
Meeting: 17/09/2018 - Audit, Governance and Standards Committee (Item 39)
39 Annual Complaints Report 2017/18 PDF 119 KB
Additional documents:
- Appendix 1: 2017/18 Stage 1 Complaint Volume Summary, item 39 PDF 148 KB View as HTML (39/2) 76 KB
- Appendix 2: 2017/18 Stage 2 Complaint Volume Summary, item 39 PDF 146 KB View as HTML (39/3) 45 KB
- Appendix 3: 2017/18 LGO Complaints by Service, item 39 PDF 178 KB View as HTML (39/4) 37 KB
- Appendix 4: Local Government Annual Review Letter 2018, item 39 PDF 248 KB
Minutes:
Mrs
Angela Woodhouse, the Head of Policy, Communications and
Governance,
introduced her report which gave an overview of how the
Council had performed in responding to complaints in 2017/18.
Mrs Woodhouse explained that:-
·
The Council had received 728 Stage 1 complaints in
2017/18 compared to 584 in the previous year which represented an
increase of 25%. The increase had been
partly due to the severe weather which had resulted in additional
complaints due to the disruption in service provision.
·
Of the 728 Stage 1 complaints received in 2017/18,
108 had been escalated to Stage 2.
·
In an effort to improve the Council’s overall
service, the Policy and Information Team would be implementing
complaint training so lessons could be learnt.
Mrs Woodhouse also drew attention to the copy of the Annual Review Letter 2018 from the Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman, attached at Appendix 4 to the report, which set out the number of complaints and enquiries that had been received about the Council.
In
response to questions, Mrs Woodhouse advised Members
that:
·
The Council categorised more issues as complaints
than some other Councils, which made our figures look
high. However she was happy to get the
Policy and Information team to revisit this.
·
Requests for service from Members were not
categorised as a complaint.
·
The Council policy on responding to a Stage 1
complaint was within 10 working days of receipt and Stage 2
complaints were investigated by the Head of Policy, Communications
and Governance and a response would be provided within a further 20
working days.
·
The change in the Summer
of last year for the management of environmental enforcement had
not had much of an effect on the number of complaints in that
area.
·
The telephone system did not allow for
prioritisation of calls. A who’s
who list was sent out to all Councillors to encourage direct
dialling.
·
Complaints about the telephone system were not
particularly high, more complaints were
generated about not being able to get through to the back
office.
The
Chairman requested that Members of the Committee try to ring into
the Council over the next few weeks and then report back to the
next meeting on their findings.
Resolved to Recommend to Council: That the
Council’s performance on complaint management in 2017/18 and
the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman’s review
letter for the year ending 31 March 2018 be noted.