The Chair again invited the Officer Lee Henley, Strategic Lead for Information Management, to introduce the report. The Officer provided a brief summary of the report highlighting that complaint volumes had reduced significantly, performance had dipped by 7% and the percentage of upheld complaints had increased upon last year. The Officer then stated that for Members Enquiries 94% had been responded to in timeframe and that there had been room for improvement in responding to MP and MEP Enquiries, where performance had hit 77%.

The Chair asked why there had been such a dip in performance. The Officer stated that there was a significant volume of activities being undertaken in terms of Complaints, Enquiries, SAR’s and FOI’s; and that this was impacting officer capacity.

Councillor Gerrish queried the lifecycle of a complaint, and where specifically in the cycle was the delay occurring. The Officer stated that a number of factors had caused apparent delays, including a reduction in the timeframe and the volume of activities being sent to services. The Officer also stated that he felt the performance target of 95% was too high. Lastly, the Officer noted that performance was up this year, although not in the period which the report covered.

Councillor Johnson stated that he felt “percentage upheld” was a poor measure of performance, as 1 upheld complaint, out of a total of 1 complaints would show as 100% of complaints upheld, and this would be misleading. The Officer stated that the service level “Dashboards” in the Appendices provided a more accurate breakdown and measure of performance, and that percentage upheld was used to provide a general overview.

Councillor Gerrish commented that the volume of complaints around bin collections had increased, as had the percentage of upheld complaints. The Councillor asked if this was showing any signs of improvement. The Officer stated that there had been no improvement and more work was required in this area.

RESOLVED:

The Standards and Audit Committee noted the statistics and performance for this reporting period.