Agenda item

The Committee considered this annual report which summarised Member Enquiries, complaints, Ombudsman caseload and FOI activity alongside performance from the 1 April 2020 to 31 March 2021.

The following information was noted in the discussion of the report.

The council had the most complaints to be upheld by the Local Government Ombudsman in comparison to neighbouring boroughs. Understanding was sought on the potential reasons for this and queries about whether this was a failure to properly address the complaint, initially, leading to an escalation to the Local Government Ombudsman. Understanding was further sought on the actions being taken to improve this situation.

In response, The Customer Experience Manager outlined the experience he was bringing to the organisation , since his recent move to the council. This included: the complaints team now looking at the initial response ahead of the deadline and so that they can liaise with the staff and offer a different point of view, providing training to staff responding to complaints , on the basics and responses .

The Customer Experience Manager had reviewed  some initial responses to complaints and in some responses officers were using very technical jargon and not responding to the heart of the matter in the complaint and was tailoring his advice to respond to this need He was also considering stage 2 complaints and noted that some were not treating the individual’s concern and would  provide guidance on this.

The Committee noted that the Customer Experience Manager was encouraging officers to use Complaints team as an advisory service. He was also encouraging peer reading so stage one responses can be more accurate, addressing the crux of the complaint. At stage two complaints he was asking officers to speak more to the customer, pick up the phone and clarify the issues and consider a resolution over the phone.

The Customer Experience Manager was reaching out to all directorates to discuss the number of complaints that they were receiving and helping to identify any trends. He expressed that complaints which were not upheld provide valuable information for the council on the improving the customer experience where needed.

Further improvements outlined, were a new corporate email inbox for Local Government  Ombudsman correspondence, ensuring the council will respond on time to requests for information.

With regards to senior  officer oversight of complaint responses, there were 6 investigation officers for level 2  complaints and they liaised heavily with the  heads of service of the team being complained about.

The Committee referred to the public interest report at page 72, and questioned if training of staff would have the required impact and whether an independent review was needed. In response, the Head of Customer Experience and Operations advised that previous training was adhoc and rudimentary. The current training was targeting every responding officer in the council ,regardless of their level of seniority with a real emphasis on the quality and a resolution. The customer experience team would continue to monitor  responses and raise with directors any issues also monitoring lessons learned from ombudsman reviews. It was hoped that the new interventions will show positive outcomes.

There were also comments made on tackling complaints that were spanning a longer period for response and the Cabinet Member for Customer services, Welfare and Public realm briefly remarked that the Complaints team were setting out how they are trying to improve the process for complaints, however, the ultimately the council need to be collectively striving to reach a situation where there were no complaints. She highlighted that questions should be directed on how to deliver good services to avoid complaints. This needed to be a collective whole council approach and was not reliant on one team in charge of processing complaints. The direction of questions should be to the service heads of the 27 complaints that have reached the  Local Government ombudsman stage and actions put in place to avoid the situation occurring. She recommended that the focus should not be on the admin of complaints but focus on service quality.

Chair took on board the comments and agreed thinking creatively about consideration of the report in future years to ensure focus on this.