MEMORANDUM30 January 2006

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To:All Members of Resources Scrutiny
Committee, Cabinet
All Chief Officers / From:COUNTY SECRETARY’S
DEPARTMENT
Ask for:
Ext:25564
My Ref:AS
Your Ref:
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HANDLING OF COMPLAINTS TOPIC GROUP

19 JANUARY 2006

MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS

ATTENDANCE

G MCook (Chairman), P V Goggins, J E Heywood, D B Lloyd, A Mitchell.

Officers

J Brown- Lead Officer – Assistant CountySecretary

D Moses-Head of Scrutiny

A Service-Group Administrator
  1. CHAIRMAN’S INTRODUCTION

The Topic Group Chairman gave a general introduction on how and why the Topic Group had been established and how its work could be taken forward.

  1. TOPIC GROUP’S WORK PROGRAMME

The Topic Group discussed and noted its remit.

The Topic Group expressed a number of desires they had at this early stage

of scrutinising this issue, which were as follows : -

-to question staff who had direct contact with the public, rather than their managers

- to obtain feedback from complainants on the complaints process

- to see that all complaints made are captured i.e complaints by Borough / District Councillors for information from County Council officers on some occasions involve County Councillors intervening or getting the information on their behalf.

- was there a need to provide training to staff who spoke to the public about service issues by telephone ?

In response to a question, Jonathan Brown advised that a complaint could be made

by telephone only and did not have to be backed up in writing.

He stated that often complaints were purely requests for a service and if reasonably provided did not require to be logged as a complaint.

The Topic Group felt that questionnaires received from complainants could provide a source from which persons could be invited to attend a future Topic Group meeting and express their feelings on the complaints procedure. It was suggested that the questionnaires should be made available to Topic Group members ahead of the next meeting so that potential past complainants could be identified and invited to attend and speak at the next meeting.

It was agreed that a copy of the leaflet issued to all staff advising how to deal with complainants be sent to all Topic Group members.

Officers from Organisations such as POhWER and Citizen Advice Bureaux could be invited to attend the Topic Group’s third meeting to express views on the Council’s complaints procedure on behalf of people who had contacted them about complaints.

The idea of a centralised complaints unit, would be looked at as part of this scrutiny exercise and could be done in reviewing how satisfactory the current system was and whether consistency rather than uniformity was a more important objective.

In response to a question, Jonathan Brown advised that in the County Council

Stage 3 complaints were dealt with centrally by the CountySecretary. Stage 1 complaints were dealt with locally by service departments. The issue seemed to be whether Stage 2 complaints should be dealt with centrally. He was not aware of a Council of Hertfordshire‘s size which dealt with Stage 2 complaints centrally.

Some London Borough Councils and Nottinghamshire County Council operated centralised complaints units.

The Topic Group stated that they would welcome the Assistant Ombudsman to attend the next meeting and they were invited to put forward questions in advance

they wished to ask of the Assistant Ombudsman so that he could come to the meeting prepared with full answers to most of the questions being put to him. It was suggested that the Topic Group advise the Topic Group Administrator - Adrian Service tel : 01992 5555564 or E mail : of questions they wished to pose to the Assistant Ombudsman.

The Topic Group expressed initial thoughts on the paperwork already supplied and contained in the submitted agenda – Appendices A to H and Annexes 1 to 3. which were as follows : -

a) The Topic Group commented on the proposed longer target being given to local authorities by the local Ombudsman office to respond to queries from 21 days to

28 days and suggested that the Council could have a target to respond to Local Ombudsman enquiries under the 28 day target now set.

b)The Topic Group suggested that they should look at each Department’s complaints handling and speaking to the staff concerned

c) It was agreed that comparative statistics on complaints received by the Local Ombudsman concerning local authorities in the Home Counties should be sent to the Topic Group.

d)Comment was made on the reduced percentage of satisfaction with the handling of complaints as expressed in the MORI survey in 2003 [detailed in Annex 2 para 4.1.1 of the submitted papers]. Jonathan Brown stated that in the most recent MORI surveyin 2005 the level of satisfaction of the Council’s handling of complaints was 44% were satisfied compared to 38% in 2003.

The Topic Group agreed that their work programme include the following :-

1.Second meeting - 8th February 2006 at 10 am

  • Evidence from Assistant Ombudsman
  • Analyse completed feedback questionnaires from complainants received by departments.
  • Decide date for 5th meeting.

2.Third meeting - 14 February 2006 at 10 am

  • Evidence from complaints managers on : -

- Review of annual reports.

- Explain how complaints systems work.

- How are members kept fully informed on complaints concerning their

constituencies, is it happening?

- More information requestedby Members on the following :

- Annual report CSF - para. 3.5-explanation of new role.

- para 6.2 table- what action is being taken to

address Head/Managementand Bullying issues

- Annual Report Environment page 3 of 5 - what action is being taken to improveefficiency of communications.

  • Evidence from advocacy agency eg: POhWERplus any alternative agencies
  • Evidence from front line staff who deal with complaints.
  • Members to decide if/which complainants they want to hear evidence from.

3.Fourth meeting - 8 March 2006 at 2pm

  • Interview complainants
  • Discuss report to be made to Resources Scrutiny Committee

4.Fifth meeting [date to be determined]

  • Consider draft Report to be submitted to Resources Scrutiny Committee.

Andrew Laycock

CountySecretary

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