To consider the report.

Nikki Craig, Head of HR and Corporate Projects, updated the Panel on the Annual Complaints and Compliments Report.

Nikki Craig reported that the annual report covered the period April 2018 to March 2019.

Council’s are required under statute to produce a report for adults and children’s complaints, but not on complaints relating to corporative activities, however the Royal Borough’s annual report covers all services. 

The council’s complaints process was made up of various stages depending on the type of complaint, with the complainant being able to take it to the local government and social care ombudsman if they remained dissatisfied once the councils process had been exhausted.

In 2018/19, overall out of over 1600 contacts made to the council’s compliments and complaints team, 437 were progressed as complaints.  Of these, 63 were for services covered by this O&S with 25 for communities, enforcement and partnerships and 38 for library and resident services.  These combined made up 17% of the total complaints progressed.

Themes of complaints were self-selected by the complainant with the main reasons in 2018/19 being ‘lack of action’ (we did not do what we said we would do) and ‘requiring help, intervention or guidance’.  These scored similarly to ‘attitude or behaviour of staff’ and ‘failed to follow timescales’.

Timeliness in responding to complaints had improved for the council from 51% in 2017/18 to 64% in 2018/19. Performance for these two services in responding within timescales is higher than the council average with Communities, enforcement and partnerships responding to 76% of complaints within timescales and libraries and resident services responding to 87% of complaints within timescales.

In relation to outcomes the council upheld or partially upheld 67% of all complaints; CEP upheld less than the council average at 52% and library and resident services upheld more than the council average, at 87%.  Learnings were taken from complaints upheld and partially upheld with some examples detailed in the annual report (p39) Table 15.

If a complainant remained dissatisfied, they could complain to the LGSCO.  Of the 44 complaints and enquiries escalated to the LGSCO, none were for library and resident services, 4 related to CEP, two of which were referred back for local resolution and two were closed after initial investigations.

Finally, the council had seen an increase in compliments from 456 in 2017/18 to 555 in 2018/19.  Of the 555, 73 were received by CEP and 225 were received by library and resident services including compliments for community wardens, registrars and libraries.  Examples are detailed in the annual report (p40) in table 17.

The Panel made the following comments:

·         The name change had allowed residents to complain and give compliments.

·         Councillor Price asked if our performance could be compared to other Local Authorities to measure performance. Officers would look into this for next year's annual report.

·         Councillor Bhangra asked what the turnaround time was for an enquiry/complaint to be resolved. Nikki Craig informed the Panel that the council policy was that these should take no longer than ten working days but it varied on individual circumstances. Officers sometimes had to request additional time from the complainant to complete the enquiries and provide a full response.

·         The types of complaints were briefly discussed. If the complaint was regarding a parking ticket then this would be reverted back to the correct process and appeal system, if it was a waste management complaint and a one off, then it would be dealt with by the service request. However if it had been reported more than once, it was treated as a complaint.

·         The progress had improved from last year.

RESOLVED Unanimously: that the Panel noted the report and agreed that the report was published on the Council’s website and that the annual report continued to be produced and presented at

Overview and Scrutiny panels.