To approve the revised Formal Complaints Policy and ‘Have your Say’ approach.  

That the proposed ‘Have your Say’ approach and formal complaints policy be APPROVED.  

110.1        The report of the Head of Corporate Services, circulated at Pages No. 154-157,  provided the Committee with details of the formal complaints review, the new ‘Have your Say’ approach and how the new digital platform would help the Council to ensure feedback from customers was responded to appropriately. The report and policy had been presented to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee which had endorsed the proposals and Members were asked to approve the ‘Have your Say’ approach and formal Complaints Policy.

110.2        The Corporate Services Manager advised that the current Complaints Policy had been introduced in 2016 and it was felt prudent to carry out a review at this stage. The Council received a low number of complaints each year which indicated that, on the whole, its customers were satisfied with how the Council ran its services; however, the complaints review now proposed new ways for customers to provide feedback to ensure all issues were being captured. The ‘Have your Say’ approach had been put forward following a discussion with Members of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee when it had been agreed that introducing more ways for customers to feed back to the Council would provide a clear picture of residents’ satisfaction as well as preventing some issues which were currently logged as formal complaints being treated more as a service issue. One of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee Members had put forward the suggestion of introducing the four Cs – compliments, comments, concerns and complaints – which was successfully used within the NHS. The four Cs were described in the document attached at Appendix 1 to the report and would support the ‘Have your Say’ approach information on the Council’s website. The only feedback channel that required a formal policy was complaints and the new policy was attached to the report at Appendix 2. This was largely based on the previous policy but had been updated for the new digital platform and set out what people could expect from the process once a formal complaint was made.

110.3        Referring to the Council’s new digital platform, the Corporate Services Manager explained that the flexibility offered within it would be extremely helpful to the Council. It would automate the complaint allocation process and allow access to a large number of reports about complaints so they could be properly analysed and information provided to Members more accurately about complaints within their Wards. She advised that the report had been presented to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee in February where Members had endorsed the four C’s and welcomed the improvements that would come with the new digital platform. If the report was approved by the Executive Committee it would be implemented in May in line with the timescale for the new digital platform.

110.4        Members felt the new approach would be a great improvement, providing effective communication both for residents and Members. It was also noted that the digital platform would create a resource within the Customer Services team which would become  ...  view the full minutes text for item 110