Agenda item

The Commission will receive an update to accompany a Corporate Complaints (Non Statutory) report that went to the Audit and Risk Committee in December 2015. A minute extract from that meeting is also attached.

The Director of Finance submitted a report to the committee on Corporate Complaints (Non Statutory), which had also been considered by the Audit and Risk Committee in December 2015.  The Director along with the Vacancy Management Service Manager provided an update to the committee on the current situation. Points made included the following:

·         Previously complaints had been dealt with by each division; this had resulted in differing standards of practice.

·         The Vacancy Management Service Manager had been asked to find ways to improve the process. This had resulted in a new Customer Relations Management System.

·         The old system had recorded what might have been merely an enquiry from a member of the public, as a complaint.

·         As part of the new system there would be one team to investigate the complaint. There would also be a triage system and the customer would be asked from the outset what they wanted the council to do.

·         Some of the complaints received were quite complex and technical; in those situations officers would talk to the customer and agree a response time.

·         Previously a complex complaint might have necessitated being investigated by four different sections, but the new system would look at the customer holistically with the complaint being dealt with by one designated team.

·         The scheme would be piloted from 1 April 2016 and could be amended following evaluation and feedback.

·         There would be a self- portal on line where customers could create their own account. It was expected that this would roll out in June 2016.

Members praised the initiative and made comments and raised queries which included the following:

·         The new system was originally due to be implemented in January; was there a reason for the delay?

The committee heard that they had been asked to delay the implementation because another system went live at the same time.

·         At the meeting of the Audit and Risk Committee that was held in December 2015, councillors had been informed that complaint statistics would be available in the summer. Councillor Patel queried whether this was still on target and also whether councillors had been informed of the new system.

The Vacancy Management Service Manager confirmed that statistics would be available in the summer. Councillors had not yet been informed of the new complaints system, but this could be done.

·         Officers were asked to ensure that a distinction was made between statutory and non-statutory complaints.

·         Councillors queried if, for example, statistics revealed that there was a particular problem in a specific area, whether this would be picked up and addressed. Previously it had sometimes been difficult to identify  relatively minor issues, such as requests for orange bags.

The committee were informed that the new system was more sophisticated and would identify these issues.

·         How could the system cope if an email was sent in which it raised several issues and perhaps involved a number of different agencies?

Officers responded that there would be business analysts looking at the incoming email traffic, but there may be situations where an officer in the back office would separate out the enquiries.

·         There was some discussion relating to the Members’ Portal and Members stressed the importance of involving the councillors in its design before it went live.

·         Officers were asked whether councillors would be able to look at the complaint history of a customer.

Members heard that this would be a data protection issue. Customers would be able to track their own history on their portal but members would not be able to access their records.

·         A query was raised as to what would happen if someone did not want to create an account on the on-line portal.

The Vacancy Management Service Manager responded that this would be the choice of the customer, but where they could be encouraged to use the online system, there would be more time for customer services to help the most vulnerable. Those people who created an online portal account would also be able to see the history of all their transactions.

·         Councillor Porter commented that currently with member enquiries, members of the public were given an assurance that they would be sent a response within 10 days and that this worked well. He questioned whether this would change.

Officers responded that there would be no change to this time scale for members’ enquiries, except for complex complaints where a time scale would be negotiated.

·         Councillor Porter asked how many complaints had been reported to the Ombudsman.

Officers responded that 97 out of approximately 3000 complaints had been sent to the Ombudsman. Out of these, 21 complaints met the required criteria and were investigated by the Ombudsman and 9 (0.3%) were deemed to be the fault of Leicester City Council.

·         Councillor Dawood referred to the number of complaints received that related to staff attitude and behaviour, and the timeliness of service and stated that a realistic target was needed to reduce these.

The Director of Finance responded that from this system, complaints about staff attitude or behaviour would be identified straight away and it would even show whether those complaints related to a particular operative. A target for the following year had not been set as time was needed to embed the new system. In addition, it was not unlikely that more complaints would be inevitably forthcoming as services were rationalised and reprioritised because of spending cuts.

·         Concern was raised that there could be an impact on people’s tenancy and rent, even to the point of eviction if housing benefit was miscalculated.

The Director explained that it was rare for benefits to be calculated incorrectly; overpayments of that nature usually related to tenant or claimant error. It did not happen very often that the council were at fault, but if this was the case, there was a compensation scheme which under certain circumstances might be applied.

The City Mayor thanked members for their comments and stated that it was very much hoped that this new system would enable complaints to be dealt with more effectively and therefore reduce the numbers that went on to become Stage Two complaints or submitted to the Ombudsman.

The Chair concluded the discussion and stated a progress report would be submitted to the Audit and Risk Committee, he thought that it was important that an oversight should also be brought to the Overview Select Committee. He suggested that the individual commissions might also wish to be updated on complaints received which related to their own area.

AGREED:

that the update on Corporate Complaints (Non Statutory) be noted and that an oversight on the new non statutory corporate complaints process be brought to a future meeting of the Overview Select Committee.