Lee Henley presented the report that set out the number of complaints received for the reporting period was 1227 and that in comparison with the same period last year the figure was 1393, therefore the reporting period represented a reduction in complaints received. Members were referred to the details of the top 10 complaint areas, a summary for Adult Social Care complaints and a summary for Children Social Care complaints. That during the reporting period, 33% of complaints had been upheld which had been an improvement compared with the same period last year which had identified 40% of complaints as being upheld, 88% of complaints had been responded to within timeframe, a total of 374 MP enquiries had been received, of which 84% were responded to within the timeframe, a total of 3948 member enquiries had been received, with 95% responded to within timeframe, the average time taken to respond to members enquiries across all directorates was four days, the Council had received 1545 external compliments within the reporting period compared to 989 during last year.

Councillor Collins referred to the Ombudsman Enquiries in the report and asked for information on Maladministration which had been reported as an Ombudsman Finding. Lee Henley stated there would be a section on ombudsman decisions every year as part of the annual compliance report that varied across a whole range of service areas and there would always be cases that go to the ombudsman and key is that the Council learnt from those ombudsman findings and to consider offering alternative remedies as part of the complaints process. Councillor Collins asked what maladministration meant to which Lee Henley confirmed as an injustice, where a kind of incorrect or inefficient action had been undertaken by the Council. Councillor Collins questioned whether this could be caused by a lack of supervision to which Lee Henley stated it could be, it could be a lack of communication from the Council, a wrong decision made on a particular case and reiterated it could be a range of things and referred Members to Appendix 1 of the report that identified the high level learnings identified from those complaints.

Councillor Raper referred to the training in place for external companies and questioned how the training content was implemented and embedded in practice and how were the outcomes measured to which Lee Henley stated this would be undertaken by the service areas. In context the report had identified a reduction in complaints which was positive, the percentage of complaints upheld had come down so another positive and learning would be taken from those upheld complaints as part of the learning action plans to ensure we do not receive repeated complaints.

Councillor Ononaji questioned that during the reporting period why had the target of 38% of complaints upheld not been met to which Lee Henley stated the target had been met and had exceeded the target. That the lower the figure the better with the target being 38% but 33% of complaints had actually been upheld which was a real positive.

Councillor Ononaji stated the associated costs of Stage 1 complaints was high and questioned whether this was due to maladministration to which Lee Henley stated this figure had been based on all complaints during that reporting period and the costs of processing those complaints.

Councillor Snell stated it was good to see that the number of complaints had reduced but questioned whether specific training that had been identified from those cases of maladministration be undertaken on an individual basis or as a department to which Lee Henley stated this would depend on the nature of the learning but would be a combination of both with the training itself being delivered within the service area.

Councillor Carter questioned whether there was a process to measure how many complaints were repeated complaints and what percentage that would be to which Lee Henley stated that complaints were analysed, logged and tracked. There may be a few complaints about similar themes but not exactly the same complaints and that steps would be taken to prevent any further complaints of that nature.  Councillor Carter questioned whether those complaints that had been dealt with had come back to which Lee Henley stated that if a complaint had not been dealt with it would be escalated as part of the compliance process. Councillor Carter requested that more details of those types of complaints be presented in future reports.

Councillor C Kent thanked Lee Henley for the report.

RESOLVED

That the Standard and Audit Committee noted the statistics and performance for the reporting period.