John Austin, Assistant Director Corporate Governance, to brief the Committee on the corporate complaints process.
Minutes:
John Austin gave a presentation on the Council’s Corporate Complaints procedure.
The management of complaints formed an integral part of service provision and the investigation of and learning from complaints was an important part of the Council’s learning and development. It was a good source of learning about customer perception and gathering information to support performance improvement.
A complaint could be made by telephone, by personal visit to any Council office, in writing, by email, by using a paper or on-line complaints form, by petition, by fax, through a Councillor, a Member of Parliament or a Member of the European Parliament, through another representative or through a parent, carer or friend, where this was agreed by the complainant.
The Council had a 2 Stage complaint process – First Stage and a Final Stage. It was noted that Enfield Homes had a three stage complaints procedure but this would change when Enfield Homes returned to the Council.
These two stages for dealing with complaints were:
First Stage – the complaint was investigated and replied to by an officer from the service concerned;
Final Stage – an investigation and review was undertaken on behalf of the Chief Executive by a senior manager from a different service group. This included Enfield Homes complaints. All final stage investigators were trained in the Council’s process.
All final stage complaint responses were approved and signed off by the Chief Executive.
If still dissatisfied with the response after the final stage, complainants had the opportunity to refer their complaint to the Local Government Ombudsman or the Housing Ombudsman.
John Austin emphasised that the priority was for complaints to be resolved at the earliest opportunity and target deadlines were set out. Findings could be complaint ‘upheld’, ‘partially upheld’ or ‘not upheld’.
Monitoring of all complaints (including Enfield Homes) was undertaken and quarterly reports were produced for Corporate Management Board. An annual complaints report was also produced.
John Austin then provided statistical information with regard to complaints – the information given was for the period to 25 March 2014 (not quite the full year) and showed comparisons with the previous year shown in parenthesis.
First stage complaints
Final stage complaints
Enfield Homes – Stages 1 and 2
Ombudsman complaints
* One case involved a settlement of £3000+.
John Austin explained that the following actions had been taken to improve performance:
Councillor Alev Cazimoglu requested information on the numbers of complaints exceeding 30 days in response time. Councillor Toby Simon questioned whether increased workloads among senior staff were causing delays in dealing with complaints. He asked whether there was a pattern in the type of complaint received and whether there were specific trends. He suggested that consideration be given to utilising retired officers to investigate at Final Stage, rather than using staff already working to capacity.
John Austin responded that the time taken was reducing. However, he agreed to prepare an analysis and circulate to Members of the Committee.
Action: John Austin
Councillor Alev Cazimoglu noted that 71% of complaints to Enfield Homes were upheld and she questioned whether their own investigations were as robust as they should be. John Austin agreed to request Enfield Homes to provide further analysis on complaints.
John Austin advised that if all telephone calls were dealt with properly, this could reduce the number of complaints received.
Action: John Austin
He added that if there was a multifaceted complaint covering for example five or six issues and just one of these issues was upheld, then the complaint would be regarded as being upheld.
Responding to a question from Councillor George Savva, John Austin advised that the Council’s Performance Management System now provided much better information with regard to complaints received.
Councillor Edward Smith referred to the types of complaints received and the seriousness of certain complaints. He stated that some people were regular complainers and therefore there was a need to sense how important the complaints were.
He questioned when serious complaints were made the action taken and as to whether improvements were made.
John Austin replied that staff did look at trends and lessons had been learned, training issues and cultural issues identified and disciplinary action taken.
For the complainant, it was necessary to rectify the wrong and put the complainant back in the original position; compensation was paid if the complainant was out of pocket and sometimes a nominal payment was made.
John Austin advised that the Annual Report on the Council’s Corporate Complaints would be presented to the Committee after the Municipal Elections to be held in May 2014.
Action: John Austin