Agenda item

A report by the Assistant Director – Governance and Monitoring Officer

The report was presented by the Information Manager and Data Protection Officer.

The Council was responsible for ensuring it has a suitable policy in place for dealing with feedback and in particular complaints. The Council wanted to deal with complaints in a way that is open, fair, and proportionate. A policy-led approach helps staff understand what is expected of them, what options for action are available, and who can authorise these actions. Having a policy that can be shared with complainants can help in managing their expectations. Reviewing, updating, and aligning this policy meant the Council has a clear policy for dealing with feedback in general, and more specifically with complaints received.

The Policy had been aligned to be the same across the 3 Councils in the S&ELCP to provide consistency for all staff when dealing with these incidences.

The policy provided the Council with a framework to implement and take appropriate actions when dealing with complaints. It clearly defined what is and is not a complaint as well as steps that will be taken to address complaints.

·       Confirmed how to give feedback or make a complaint.

·       Highlighted any exceptions to the standard customer feedback procedure, for example where specific issues were treated by a defined complaints procedure.

·       Defined the standard of service, including response times, to expect when making a complaint.

·       Recognised the importance of customer feedback in providing insight to Council services and performance.

·       Set out how the Council monitored customer feedback and used information to improve services and identify training needs.

It had been designed to include corporate oversight and monitoring and had also been reviewed against the LGSCO Complaint Handling Code (the Code). Some of the key updates in the Code related to response times and performance reporting. The Stage 1 response time had been changed to 15 working days to align with the updated LGSCO Code – previously at Boston the response time was 20 working days. The Policy also adopted the Code’s suggested definitions for ‘a service request’ and ‘a complaint’ and confirms the approach the Council will take when responding to these.

As part of the implementation of the Policy, training and guidance would be offered to ensure Officers are aware of their responsibilities when dealing with and responding to complaints. The Council plans to use complaints review panel (a ‘complaints clinic’) to extract any lessons learnt from recent complaints to enable sharing across the organisation. The Council would also produce and publish an annual complaints performance and service improvement report to assess and analyse performance and improvements.

Committee deliberation followed which included:

On seeking the time scale in place to respond to a complaint, a member was advised that from the date of receipt of a complaint the Council had 5 working days to acknowledge the complaint. From the date they acknowledge the complaint they then had 10 working days in which to respond.

In the event that the complainant submitted a stage 2 complaint then the same 5 working days was applicable to acknowledge receipt of the stage 2 complaint and then the Council had 20 working days in which to respond.  Powers were in place to extend the time line in the event of the complaint being very complex.

Members were advised that as at the date of the meeting for the current ear, 39 complaints had been received which met the criteria for stage 1 or stage 2.  Only 18% had led to a stage 2 complaint and there had only been one LGSO complaint.

In summary the Chairman agreed the need for all three Councils to have the same policy for the ease of officers facilitating the complaints.  He further noted that the Policy itself was well written and aligned to the Ombudsman,

RECOMMENDED:

That the committee recommend approval and adoption of the Policy by Cabinet.