To consider the report.

Nikki Craig, Head of HR, Corporate Projects and IT, introduced the report for April 2019 and March 2020. There was no requirement to publish information on complaints about services other than on adult and children’s complaints and compliments, but the council made the decision to include the information in the annual report. 400 contacts made to the Compliments and Complaints team were complaints, of which 228 were for the services covered in Infrastructure. The largest reason for making a complaint was a lack of action. Timeliness in responding to complaints had reduced from 64% to 59% from 2018/2019 and 2019/2020. Timeliness in returning a reply in time in commissioning infrastructure was 61%, 15% in housing services and 37% in planning. 36% of the complaints were upheld or partially upheld. Of the services overlooked in the Infrastructure O&S Panel, 78% complaints were upheld; 53% of which were from the housing services and 10% from the planning services.

If a complainant remained dissatisfied and had exhausted the two stages of the corporate complaints process, they could go to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO). In 2019/20, 49 complaints and enquiries were registered with the LGSCO, 6 of which were under the commissioning infrastructure, none of which were upheld. 4 of the complaints were under the housing services, two of which were upheld. 9 complaints were under the planning services, two if which werereturned for being premature, 5 were closed after initial enquiries, onewas not upheld and one was upheld. Overall, the council had a decrease in compliments, with 440 compliments in 2019/2020. Of these, 68 were covered by the commissioning infrastructure teams, 10 by the housing services and 14 by the planning services.

The Chairman asked how the performance of the council compared to other councils. The Panel was informed that there was no data to work with as there was not a requirement to publish this data. Offline discussions with team members across councils suggested that other councils had similar compliments and complaint levels. The Chairman asked how the council compared to neighbouring boroughs with the data that was legally required, and the Panel was informed that this was difficult to answer as the data was not released yet.

The Chairman asked which of the measures was of most concern, and the Panel was informed that the lack of timeliness in responding was a concern. The council was able to ask for an extension in published timescales, and whilst last year was not as positive, the previous year was, and there was hoped for this year to be positive. The Chairman asked how much lack of timeliness was due to COVID-19, and the Panel was informed that some services improved during COVID-19. The LGSCO recognised that the response to COVID-19 had to take priority and therefore allowed an extension to timescale, though responses to complaints never halted in this time.

The Panel noted the report.