Agenda item
YOUR VOICE COMPLAINTS REPORT
Minutes:
The Head of Adult Social Care
& Homelessness presented
the Your Voice Complaints report for 2022/23 (previously circulated). The
report captures any compliments, suggestions and complaints received by Denbighshire
County Council under the council’s customer feedback policy. The report also
included Social Services complaints received under its statutory complaints
procedure.
The report was positive; a steady
performance of meeting complaint targets was noted in the report.
The Statutory
& Corporate Complaints Officer guided members through the detail of
the report. It provided details of each complaint received and demonstrated how
many of those complaints are dealt with within the approved timescales. Members
were informed there was a statutory procedure and timescale for complaints made
against social services along with guidelines set by the ombudsman for all
other complaints.
It was unusual for officers
to receive complaints late or outside of the timescales.
The Statutory &
Corporate Complaints Officer
informed members the number of complaints received was broadly similar to the
year before. The ombudsman was happy with the process in place for dealing with
complaints. It was also noted any compliments or suggestions received are also
recorded.
There was no issue
regarding the way complaints are processed across the council.
Members heard the ombudsman
set up the Complaints Standards Authority a couple of years ago. The Complaints
Standards Authority had responsibility for monitoring all complaints received
across the councils in Wales. The authority had recently received the
ombudsman’s draft report for Denbighshire. it stated they had received 32
complaints in the previous year. They only intervened in 2 of those complaints
both of which had an informal resolution was reached.
In the list of complaints
received in 2022/23 the highest recorded complaint had been around the
complaints process. It was thought this could be because the Statutory
& Corporate Complaints Officer also referred complainants to the ombudsman if they were dissatisfied
with his response to a complaint.
Is
was noted the low number of stage 2 complaints which suggested the more
informal stage 1 complaints are being resolved by officers.
The
Chair thanked both the officers for the introduction and reminded members that
the committee had a statutory duty to receive an annual summary of complaints.
The terms of reference of the Governance and Audit Committee included the
responsibility to review and assess the council’s ability to handle complaints
effectively.
Further
to the introduction the following areas were discussed in greater detail:
·
A complaint had been
taken on by the Welsh Language commissioner, that sat outside the Corporate
Complaints processes.
·
There was one complaint
against the Welsh Language. It was confirmed that individuals could complain in
Welsh or English at the start of the process.
·
Within the team there
was a Welsh speaker who could assist with complaints through the medium of
Welsh.
·
School complaints were
separate to the Corporate complaints procedures. Schools have their own
complaints procedure. It was unusual for the authority to intervene with
complaints against schools.
·
360is the system that
was commissioned by the council in 2019. The 360 system was council wide, it
was used for a wide range of facilities including complaints and compliments.
The ombudsman’s definition of a complaint was someone who is dissatisfied with
an issue that wants a response from the council. However, if it is the first
time an issue has been reported it would be classed as a request for service.
If it was the first instance the authority was made aware of an issue; the
ombudsman’s stance was the council should be given the opportunity to respond
to that issue in the first instance. It would become a matter of complaint if a
subsequent came back to the council with the same request.
·
Members suggested a
review to the tables included in the report for ease and transparency. It was
also suggested figures be included to the reports to demonstrate a service area
and the number of complaints made against a specific area. A breakdown of
complaints recorded against each service was available if members wanted that
information.
·
The Chair suggested that
for reports submitted to the committee a note of reference to the committee’s
Terms of Reference be included in the covering report in relation to the report
being presented.
·
The Statutory &
Corporate Complaints Officer stated it was his responsibility to
sift through the complaints. Members were provided with information on
instances that were not recorded as complaints.
·
The time limits for responding to
complaints were as follows - Stage 1: 10 working days and Stage 2: 20 working
days. The Ombudsman only classes a stage 2 complaint as a complaint, all stage
1 complaints would be classified as an informal complaint. Denbighshire
officers do treat stage 1 complaints quite formally. It was thought that may
impact the number of complaints progressing to stage 2 complaints.
·
6 months was the time frame for
complainants to formally place a corporate complaint and 12 months for
complaints against social services.
·
Freedom of information issues are complaints
made to the Information Commissioners Officers.
·
The Chair suggested the report be
presented to the committee on an annual report. Members were in agreement.
·
It was important to record compliments
on the 360 system. It’s a process for individuals to complete a compliment so
it was felt importance to note. Feedback on compliments was presented back to
officers that they relate to.
·
The Lead Member for this service was
Councillor Julie Matthews.
·
Within the 360 system includes a
mandatory section that asks for service improvements and learning from
complaints to ensure services recognise areas they can improve and learn from.
It allowed officers to identify trends and put processes in place to improve
the service in that area.
The Chair thanked the officers for the
detailed discussion.
RESOLVED that the Governance and Audit
Committee note the contents of the report.