Contact your Parish Council


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 icon PDF 119 KB

Additional documents:

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.