Agenda item

To consider the annual update to provide assurance that complaints are managed effectively.

38.1          Attention was drawn to the report of the Head of Corporate Services, circulated at Pages No. 139-148, which provided a summary of complaints received during 2017/18 and included the annual letter received from the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.  Members were asked to consider the information provided and any further action required.

38.2          Members were advised that 157 formal complaints had been received within the reporting period April 2017 to March 2018 of which 145 related to Council services.  Of those complaints, 143 had been responded to within time which equated to 91%; 14 had been out of time and seven of those had related to planning which were often more complex.  A breakdown of the complaints by service area, nature of complaint and remedy was attached to the report at Appendix 1 and it was noted that the majority of complaints were in respect of the Council’s frontline services, particularly waste and recycling, which could be attributed to the change in waste rounds, effective from 1 April 2017, and adverse weather conditions.  Members were reminded that waste collection was a high-profile service and the number of complaints in relation to the number of collections was very small.  19 complaints had been subject to a second stage review, of which eight had been justified or partially justified.  The second stage was where the complainant was unhappy with the original response and the complaint was assigned to an independent Head of Service for investigation. Members were advised that the figures were benchmarked through LG Inform, a database provided by the Local Government Association, and Tewkesbury Borough Council was consistently one of the best performers.  During 2017/18, 12 complaints relating to Tewkesbury Borough Council had been determined by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman and only two of those had been upheld.

38.3          A Member sought clarification as to what happened when a complaint to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman was upheld and he was advised that this depended on the nature of the complaint – it could be an apology or by remedy.  He confirmed that if a complaint was upheld it was not ongoing.  In response to a query regarding what those complaints related to and whether there was a common denominator, Members were informed that both had related to planning enforcement.  The Chief Executive indicated that he did not have the details to hand but would be happy to provide them outside of the meeting. 

38.4           A Member drew attention to Appendix 1 which showed there had been a delay in responding to an enquiry or request on six occasions and she expressed the view that this should not happen.  The Head of Corporate Services explained that capacity and competing priorities meant that, on occasion, it had not been possible to meet these targets.  The Chief Executive reminded Members that this report should be considered in the context of the amount of individual customer contact and service requests received by the Council.  His experience in local government suggested that the figures in relation to formal complaints were very low indeed. 

38.5          It was

                  RESOLVED          That the annual complaints report be NOTED.