Issue - meetings

Matter for Decision

The report provided an analysis of the complaints and compliments received by the Council during 2020/21 under the Corporate Complaints, Compliments and Comments procedure.

Decision of Executive Councillor for Finance and Resources

i.               Approved the draft Annual Complaints Report for 2020/21 (Appendix A of the officer’s report) and approved the report could be published on the Council’s website.

ii.             Noted the revisions to the Council’s Persistent Complainant policy (Appendix B of the officer’s report). 

Reason for the Decision

As set out in the Officer’s report.

Any Alternative Options Considered and Rejected

Not applicable.

Scrutiny Considerations

The Committee received a report from the Head of Corporate Strategy and the Business and Development Manager.

The Committee made the following comments in response to the report:

i.               Acknowledged the high number of positive comments.

ii.      Noted the Council took complaints seriously and their commitment to service improvement. Asked for further focus on the Council’s learning and actions in the next report.

iii.     Noted the report was for an atypical year and some services had received compliments and some had received complaints. Felt it was constructive to see the report presented in the way it was with root causes identified and actions which needed to be taken.

iv.    Asked how councillors would be involved with the implementation of the Persistent Complainant Policy (Appendix B of the officer’s report). Asked if Ward Councillors would be made aware when the policy was applied. Asked how often the policy had been applied.

v.      Questioned how the policy would be applied, as a person could be a persistent complainant but be making a valid point which the council could learn from.

vi.    Welcomed the report, felt there was a lot of positivity in the light of the difficult year everyone had experienced.

The Head of Corporate Strategy said the following in response to Members’ questions:

      i.         The Council would record how often the Persistent Complainant Policy was applied and this would be included in the report next year. The Policy was applied infrequently. Would check to see if there were any confidentiality or data protection issues in sharing the information with Ward Councillors.

    ii.         The Persistent Complainant Policy was drawn from the Local Government Ombudsman’s version. There were safeguards in place before the policy was applied for example the Council’s Monitoring Officer was involved in the process.

The Committee resolved by 4 votes to 0 to endorse the recommendations.

The Executive Councillor approved the recommendations.

Conflicts of Interest Declared by the Executive Councillor (and any Dispensations Granted)

No conflicts of interest were declared by the Executive Councillor.