Minutes:
5.1 Mr Mick Barnard, a member of the public, had been given the opportunity to address the committee. He claimed that Southwark officers had failed to adhere to the constitution and to the legal framework within which a local authority was required to operate. He referred to various officers, including the chief executive, monitoring officer and a principal lawyer, and to individual members with whom he had raised his concerns. Mr Barnard stated that he could provide a number of examples of such failures. He had raised a series of complaints which he felt had not been adequately investigated or responded to. He was not satisfied with the process undertaken by officers of the council.
5.2 Members of the committee asked for details of complaints which Mr Barnard felt had not been properly dealt with. Mr Barnard referred to an incident involving a former mayor. He also referred to a feasibility study in respect of new changing rooms on Peckham Rye which he felt that officers had not taken account of. He claimed that officers had not adhered to the legal framework and that neither the monitoring officer nor complaints officer had accepted that this was in their remit to investigate.
5.3 The chair of the committee acknowledged that Mr Barnard had recently asked a public question at Council Assembly on a similar topic. She asked him whether his key concern was about process and about the procedure to be followed if a complainant was not happy with a response received from the council. Mr Barnard repeated his view that proper process was not being followed and that this needed to be investigated, perhaps using one of the cases he was aware of as an example. He also stated that he had not been able to submit a six hundred signature petition to the committee. The chair clarified that the committee was not able to look into individual complaints but could look at the complaints process more generally, for instance in terms of what happened when a complaint was not resolved.
5.4 A member of the committee commented that, while it was important that the council give a hearing to concerns raised by the public, it also had a responsibility as to how public funds were used. The member acknowledged that Mr Barnard had attended Council Assembly and was now attending this committee. Mr Barnard had also stated that his complaints had been going on over a number of years. The member was concerned as to how much these various processes had cost the authority. Duncan Whitfield, Strategic Director of Finance and Corporate Services, stated that he could not provide the total cost of responding to Mr Barnard’s complaints but that, due to the level of senior management engagement, it would be significant and perhaps run into tens of thousands of pounds.
5.5 Another member recognised that on occasion the public might receive a sub-standard service from the council. Part of the role of overview and scrutiny was to review particular service areas and to determine whether there were ways of improving them. Mr Barnard responded that, over an eight year period, nothing had helped. He said that he had submitted dozens of deputations and questions, most of which had been rejected. He had submitted a complaint for which there was an established procedure but officers had denied having the responsibility to deal with it. A member suggested that the facts as Mr Barnard saw them were being disputed by the officers who had investigated his complaints. Perhaps Mr Barnard had not got what he wanted from the process, rather than there being a fundamental problem with the process itself or the process not being followed. Another member asked whether Mr Barnard had contacted the Local Government Ombudsman. Mr Barnard explained that the Ombudsman only dealt with issues causing direct personal injustice to the complainant. He was representing a local football team, in respect of the changing rooms, and other people, rather than himself and therefore the Ombudsman had not taken up his complaints.
5.6 The chair reiterated that the committee was not part of the complaints procedure. Members took the view that in the new municipal year the incoming Overview & Scrutiny Committee could consider looking at how the council dealt with complex complaints and how these were addressed once the usual complaints process had been exhausted. It could also look at comparable bodies to see whether more satisfactory outcomes were being achieved and whether there were any ways to improve Southwark’s procedures. Some members were concerned that the issues raised by Mr Barnard were not sufficient to justify this.
RESOLVED:
That officers be asked to bring a briefing to the incoming Overview & Scrutiny Committee detailing the process by which complicated complaints are dealt with, to include:
- how it is decided where a complaint goes
- how a complaint is escalated
- maintenance of any audit trail for complaints, decisions and costs
- whether there is any cap on compensation awards
- recent performance against the current procedure
- any comparative procedures and statistics
- decision making process in determining a vexatious complainant