Agenda item

To consider the Annual Formal Complaints Report for 2022/23.

The Committee considered a report, set out at Agenda pages 21 to 34, which gave details of formal complaints received by the Council in 2022/23.

Jackie Whitney (Strategic Lead for Customer, Change, Digital & IT) and Daneet Penny (Corporate Complaints Officer) attended the meeting to introduce the report and answer Member questions. This was the first time that the complaints report had been submitted to the Committee. In previous years the report had been submitted to the Audit Committee.

The Council’s formal complaints process contained three stages – stage 1 and stage 2 were internal investigations. Stage 3 was signposting to the relevant Ombudsman. The majority of complaints in 2022/23 were resolved early without recourse to the formal stage 1 process.

The report noted that, in May 2022, Housing Services began managing complaints in line with the Housing Ombudsman’s new complaints handling code.

The report stated that 2022/23 saw a 28.2% increase in the number of formal complaints. This was linked to the introduction of the Housing Ombudsman’s complaints handling code which removed the option of early resolution. Of the complaints received, 78% were resolved early without formal escalation to stage 1. Across all stages, 32.5% were upheld/partially upheld, 55% were not upheld and 12.5% were undetermined. The report included details of the number and type of complaints received in each of the Council’s directorates

In the ensuing discussion, Members raised the following points and questions.

What constituted a complaint? It was explained that a service request, e.g. not cutting the grass, could become a service failure and a complaint if the service request was not responded to in a reasonable time.

Was there a time limit for each of the stages within the complaints process? It was confirmed that the aim was to achieve early resolution within five working days. For stage 1 the deadline for a response was 15 working days. For stage 2 the deadline was 20 working days. The majority of these deadlines were met. It was suggested that the next annual report include details of performance against the deadlines for each stage.

In relation to page 27 of the report – Customer Compliments – it was suggested that a balancing page of Customer Complaints be included in the next annual report.

Was there any benchmarking of the Council’s performance in handling complaints? It was confirmed that benchmarking was carried out through looking at the Ombudsman annual reviews which compared different councils. It was noted that different councils used different stages in their procedures.

The report referred to staff training on the 3Cs – care, clarity and confidence. To date, 122 staff members had undertaken the training. The training had improved the quality of complaint responses, with fewer stage 2 escalations and higher customer satisfaction. Consideration was being given to introducing 3C principles into the corporate induction and annual staff appraisal processes. It was confirmed that a team of six quality assurance assessors was working across services to quality assess, advise on best practice and ensure that training was targeted in areas where pockets of dissatisfaction were identified.

The reports referred to “customers” rather than residents. What was the difference? It was confirmed that the term “customer” referred to the services provided and the way they were received. This issue had been discussed with focus groups as part of the development of the Customer Excellence Strategy – currently out to consultation.

With regard to the timeframe for each stage of the complaints process – was performance reviewed internally? It was confirmed that the corporate complaints team monitored performance against the deadlines and provided appropriate prompts and support to services.

What happened if customers did not escalate their complaint to the next stage? It was confirmed that if the customer did not escalate it was assumed that they were content. In these circumstances customers were sent a feedback survey to gauge satisfaction with the way the complaint was handled. Feedback from the satisfaction surveys was generally positive.

The report combined data for complaints received by email and post. Could this be split in future reports? It was confirmed that very few complaints were received by post. However, officers would look at splitting the data in future reports.

In relation to the charts on pages 24 and 25 of the report, this data would be more useful if presented as numbers rather than percentages, especially when looking at trends from year to year. Officers agreed to look at this when further reports were submitted to Members.

RESOLVED That:

1)     Jackie Whitney and Daneet Penny be thanked for attending the meeting to present the complaints report and answer Member questions;

2)     the Committee support the inclusion of data in future reports on response times for each of the complaint stages, with targets and actual performance;

3)     the Committee support a further review of the term “customer” and possible alternatives, in the context of the emerging Customer Excellence Strategy;

4)     the relevant Overview and Scrutiny Committees receive early sight of any updates to the WBC Complaints Policy;

5)     future complaints reports include more detailed equality monitoring data.