Agenda item

5.1  The Customer Resolution Manager, Zoe Bulmer, introduced the report.

5.2  Councillor David Noakes sought assurance that a council decision not to escalate a complaint did not prevent a complainant applying to the Local Government Ombudsman.  The Customer Resolution Manager confirmed that this option remained open to the complainant and that on occasion the council advised complainants to take this route as the council’s decision was unlikely to change.  The chair, Councillor Gavin Edwards, asked the grounds on which a decision might be changed.  The Customer Resolution Manager indicated that it would be possible to provide statistics on how often a decision was changed.  She explained that often a complaint required action, for instance completion of a repair, and the focus in such cases was on resolution.  In other cases, such as planning applications, the council needed to demonstrate that a particular process had been correctly followed.

5.3  Councillor Noakes also questioned whether the target for responding to stage 1 and stage 2 of the complaints process was always met.  The Customer Resolution Manager clarified the deadlines and confirmed that the deadline for stage 2 was almost always met.  In the case of stage 1, it was sometimes preferable to go beyond the deadline in order to allow time for a complaint to be resolved.  The Customer Resolution Manager also reported that the response times to Members’ Enquiries had also improved with 99% of repairs responses meeting the ten day deadline in the last quarter.

5.4  Councillor Johnson Situ asked how complaints which related to several services were dealt with.  The Customer Resolution Manager replied that, if a complaint was complex and involved different departments, the council would tell the complainant that the response might take longer.  She explained that in these cases the council would often acknowledge the complaint by telephone and explain the process to the complainant.  There was also the option to log the complaint as two separate complaints.  Councillor Claire Maugham wondered what the council was doing to assess residents’ experience of the complaints process.  The Customer Resolution Manager stressed that this was a priority.  One aim was to put the customer satisfaction process online.  It would then be possible to provide a link to an online survey in the letter which outlined the council’s response to the complaint.  The Head of Customer Experience, Richard Selley, added that customer services and the contact centre were looking for opportunities to intervene as soon as possible and to resolve issues before they became formal complaints.

5.5  Councillor Tom Flynn highlighted paragraph 32 of the report.  He wondered whether the number of complaints from the public went down because members were picking up and pursuing complaints on behalf of their constituents.  He particularly wondered if this was the case where residents were not confident to complain directly to the council.  The Customer Resolution Manager suggested that, where complaints had increased across services in the run-up to an election, this might suggest that party campaigning encouraged residents to think about the services they received.  It was important to ensure that residents knew how to raise concerns.  The Head of Customer Experience emphasised that not all members’ enquiries related to complaints.

5.6  Councillor Jasmine Ali questioned how good the council was at communicating about its services with the recipients of social care.  The Customer Resolution Manager reported that her team managed the adults’ and children’s services complaints process.  Her team had brought experience and expertise to help people understand how complaints could be made.  Specifically, they had reviewed leaflets and publicity and renewed the website.

5.7  Councillor Adele Morris acknowledged the improvement in housing repairs, particularly where jobs were no longer being closed before they had been complete to tenants’ satisfaction.  She asked how this had been achieved.  The Customer Resolution Manager stressed the importance of learning from complaints.  Housing repairs were a key issue where the council had been keen to learn from complaints and to make improvements.  The customer satisfaction survey was vital and issues had been raised directly with contractors.  The Head of Customer Experience added that he would expect jobs to be closed only when the customer confirmed that they were completed.  If an email address had been provided by the tenants then the customer satisfaction survey was sent to them direct.  In addition, a proportion of customers received a telephone call inviting their comments.

5.8  The chair invited Mr Mick Barnard, a member of the public who had prompted the committee’s discussion of how the council addressed complex complaints, to make any comments.  Mr Barnard was concerned that the issues had been over-simplified.  His complaint had stretched over five years and he had been designated a habitual complainant twice.  At times officers had appeared to be in conflict over how his complaint should be processed.  The chair asked whether there was one thing Mr Barnard would like to change about the process.  Mr Barnard stated that people needed to know what the process was.

5.9  The chair was interested in what purchase the complaints team had on officers in other departments, in terms of being able to dig into particular issues.  The Head of Customer Experience explained that the team provided its expertise to other departments and co-ordinated responses to complaints.  It also published details of the departments’ speed of response to complaints and this information was available to senior officers.  The Head of Customer Experience added that the team had a greater role within the housing department.  The chair of the committee also asked to what extent the information provided by the complaints team contributed to policy making.  The Customer Resolution Manager responded that the work of the team helped to identify failings and challenges.  It might identify an absence of policy or help to make improvements to existing policy.

5.10  Councillor David Noakes asked whether complainants were given a timescale for the redress of complaints, for instance in terms of works being followed up and completed, and whether monitoring took place to ensure that this work was done.  The Customer Resolution Manager confirmed that, depending on the nature of the repair in question, a timescale was provided.  If necessary this could be escalated to the attention of senior staff.  The Head of Customer Experience stated that a monthly liaison meeting took place with colleagues in the repairs team, focusing on the oldest of any outstanding complaints.  The Customer Resolution Manager added that the complaints team did outreach work with contractors, council officers working in repairs and with the contact centre.

5.11  The chair of the committee thanked officers for the briefing.  He asked for further information on departmental statistics and how these were used and for figures over time.