Agenda and minutes

At this point Members are asked to declare any personal or prejudicial interests they may have in the business on this agenda.

Members were invited to declare any personal or prejudicial interests they might have in the business on the agenda.  None were declared.

To approve and sign the minutes of the meeting held on 4 November 2010.

RESOLVED:            That the minutes from the last meeting, held on 4 November

                        2010,  be approved as a correct record.

At this point in the meeting, members of the public who have registered their wish to speak regarding an item on the agenda or an issue within the Committee’s remit can do so. The deadline for registering is by 5pm on Thursday 18^th November 2010.

To register please contact the Democracy Officer for the meeting, on the details at the foot of this agenda.

It was reported that there had been no registrations to speak under the council’s Public Participation Scheme.

This report presents information gathered to date in support of the Customer Complaints scrutiny review and asks Members to identify relevant consultees and any additional information required in support of this review

Members considered a report that presented information gathered to date in support of the Customer Complaints scrutiny review.  The report also asked Members to identify relevant consultees and any additional information required in support of the review.

Members discussed the following issues:

(i)            Corporate Customer Feedback Policy

Further consideration was given to the proposed wording of the Corporate Customer Feedback Policy in respect of Stage 1 complaints.  It was agreed that the following wording should be included “The process for escalating a service request to Stage 1 of the complaints procedure is in the hands of the complainant who will indicate, either verbally to an officer or in writing, that they are not satisfied with the response to/outcome of their service request”. 

(ii)        Local Government Ombudsman (LGO)

Consideration was given to the Table of Complaints received by LGO in 2009/10 and to the LGO annual report detailing CYC complaints (Annexes A and B of the report). 

Members agreed that although there were not an excessive number of complaints, there was room for improvement.  The intention should also be to deal with any complaint as early as possible.

Members were concerned to note that the council’s average response time had worsened and was significantly outside the target time of 28 days.  Officers stated that the new corporate tracking system should ensure that complaints were dealt with in a timely basis and could be more effectively controlled.  Members suggested that, as part of the flag system, the Chief Executive should be notified of any complaints that reached the red stage.

It was noted that each of the stages would be time limited and that data would be provided to ensure that management teams were aware of their progress.  Members suggested that data on complaints should be presented to managers on a monthly basis.  It was noted that managers and directors would also have access to the IT system to enable them to track the progress of a particular complaint.

Members requested that LGO forms were made more widely available in council buildings.¹

(iii)            Number and Type of Complaints Received by CYC since 1 January 2010

Consideration was given to the statistics in regard to Freedom of Information Requests (FOIs), complaints from the public, Councillor requests/enquiries and LGO referrals for 2010, as detailed in Annex C of the report.

Members were concerned to note the inconsistency between directorates in respect of the recording of complaints. 

Members queried the accuracy of some of the figures, including those relating to the number of Stage 1 complaints in the Chief Executive’s Office, although it was noted that some of these were then passed to the relevant department which may have resulted in double counts.  They also queried why the cumulative totals for the two periods were significantly different.  It was agreed that further information was required on these issues.

(iv)            Members’ Reporting of Complaints

It was noted that, partly because of the lack of confidence in the Members’ Portal, Members were currently reporting  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.