Meeting documents

1.1 This report provides an analysis of customer complaints received by the Council during 2003-2004

2.1 Consider the contents of this report and whether any further specific actions are required.

3.1 There are no financial implications directly arising from this.

4.1 Customer feedback continues to be encouraged, and our corporate objective is to increase customer satisfaction year on year. The number of complaints received in 2003/04 was lower than in 2002/03 which in turn was slightly lower than in 2001/02. There is the beginning of a downward trend although it is recognised that by actively encouraging customers to complain and provide feedback on the service they receive there will be an increase in complaints and customer comments. Complaints are welcomed as providing a positive opportunity to review and improve processes from the customer point of view. All contacts received are responded to following the corporate procedure.

4.2 The attached Appendix 1 shows that we received 414 customer contacts through the complaints system in 2003/04 compared with 739 in the previous year. A total of 235 or 57% were complaints about perceived service failures compared to 65% in the previous year, an improvement of 8%. The remaining 179 were made up of comments or observations about services.

4.3 Overall there were 251 fewer complaints and 14 fewer comments received than in 2002/03. In 89% of cases we replied within the corporate response standards. The standards are to acknowledge within 5 working days and provide a full response within 20 working days if more time is needed we shall explain why.

4.4 Not all complaints are dealt with through the corporate procedure as was the case last year. The majority of complaints in Education are made directly to schools and resolved by them. However it was decided to record those complaints about schools which were made first to the authority, or reached us because they had not yet been resolved at school level. In total 16 complaints were made about schools and referred to school governors for resolution. Housing & Social Services have their own procedure that covers both statutory requirements and other complaints. All such complaints are included in the totals shown in this report.

4.5 Since the last annual Complaints Report the responsibility for complaints monitoring and management has been made a corporate responsibility of the Customer Services, Libraries and Information service who through the Customer Access Programme are developing a consistent branded Customer Services front line staff group. This will be supported by the planned introduction of a Customer Relationship Management System ensuring customer contact information is available across services enabling staff to provide comprehensive responses taking account of other enquiries made by customers and the status of these.

4.6 To effectively incorporate complaints monitoring the council have recognised the need to ensure staff understand what constitutes a complaint, that they are authorised to deal with complaints as they arise and can demonstrate learning from issues raised by complaints received. It is recognised that there are still variations in what is regarded as a complaint compared to a request for a service across services and central monitoring of complaints reporting is a step towards enabling a consistent complaints reporting process.

4.7 Following on from last year's Complaints Report a new Corporate Complaints Procedure has been devised in order to make the process more responsive to customers. It is anticipated it will be implemented in full in the New Year once adequate preparations have been undertaken within the Council to enable its effective implementation.. The three part procedure has been designed to comply with best practice elsewhere and specific criteria relating to complaints procedures such as those contained in the Chartermark accreditation system and in the Local Government Ombudsman's guide.

5.1 The rationale for complaints monitoring is to ensure services in general are moving towards the improvement of customer satisfaction in line with the council's improvement priorities and as part of the customer access programme to create a consistent branded front line Customer Services with staff attuned to customer needs.

5.2 Lessons learned or actions taken by services from complaints received included: Operations' initiatives to categorise key complaints in order to improve service processes and procedures (complaints have fallen this year by over 50%); an annual report from Aquaterra Leisure including a comprehensive section on complaints and actions taken in response; a decision for staff to receive further training to improve council's performance; working practices revised to improve service delivery; a new procedure was introduced by the Housing Improvement Team and the Occupational Therapy Service to ensure that advice given to enquiries regarding equipment such as a stair lift is accurate; Finance Section procedures were amended to ensure that direct payments are tracked more closely and staff in a Mental Health Team were reminded of the necessity to provide service users with clear information about the nature of the service that will be provided.

5.3 For Revenues and Benefits 'bearing in mind the large volume of transactions, around 100 complaints of a varied nature appears quite low. Every complaint which has been upheld has resulted in changes to procedure to try to ensure that these are not repeated. Where a complaint identified training needs these have been also been addressed.

5.4 The only complaints the registration service have had were in relation to car parking. The service responded by providing designated spaces for customers at Charlotte Street car park. For complaints received in respect of the way staff deal with death registration staff awareness has been emphasised.

5.5 Democratic Services complaints fall largely into the category of access to information, where we are constantly reviewing our information systems and access procedures to ensure better public clarity.

5.6 The top three topics raised by customers for libraries were; stock, which is being addressed with a change in selection policy and additional resources allocated; staff attitude and behaviour which has been addressed through a service restructure and staff development programme. The third area is the lack of toilet facilities which is not always within the control of the libraries concerned, however the service is taking the opportunity to look at access to facilities for all customers as part of the building upgrading being carried out in response to the Disability Discrimination Act.

6.1 None.

7.1 None.