Agenda item

To give the Audit & Governance Committee an overview of the Council’s complaint handling performance in 2022/23 and to demonstrate how feedback from customers has been used to improve services.

Witnesses:

Jessica Brooke - Customer Relations Manager

Sam Reynolds - Head of Customer Engagement and System Development

Key points raised during the discussion:

1.    The Customer Relations Manager introduced the report and clarified that the report covered the period from 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023, it focused on concerns from residents dealt with by the formal complaints process not for example correspondence received by Members and the ‘Corporate’ complaints category related to services that were not social care or education related.

2.    The Customer Relations Manager highlighted key figures detailed in the report relating to the 30% increase in complaints across the board and noted the breakdown for the three categories and the reasons for the increases. She noted the escalation rates and reasons for the increase in Education Services. She outlined the breakdown of the figure of the total remedies paid by the Council.

3.    The Customer Relations Manager noted that the importance of having a complaints process was to identify where the Council could be doing things differently or better. In Children’s Services there had been policy changes around Direct Payment and the Home to School Transport policies, in Adult Social Care (ASC) there were regular meetings to review delivery concerning care home practitioners, and in the Corporate Customer Relations Team the Early Resolution model continued to be working well. That model was being introduced within the admissions and the Home to School Transport services in Education Services, with complaint leads in those areas in the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities quadrants who could liaise directly with families.

4.    The Customer Relations Manager concluded that following the publication of the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman’s (LGSCO) Annual Letter in July, the Committee would receive a report in November providing analysis.

5.    A Committee member noted that the 30% increase in overall complaints was worrying and noted concern in the decline in response times. He noted that comparative figures with other similar authorities were missing from the report despite being provided in previous years. The Customer Relations Manager clarified that comparative figures with other local authorities would be provided in the report scheduled in November as the benchmarking data would be included in the LGSCO’s Annual Letter. She noted the need to focus on why complainants were escalating their complaints and that unnecessary escalations were being reviewed, focusing on the Early Resolution model and Alternative Dispute Resolution. She noted that the complaints teams monitor and chase for responses from the busy frontline services, it was hoped that the quadrant leads would have a positive impact on the timeliness of responses.  

6.    As a supplementary question, the Committee member asked whether staffing levels were part of the problem. The Head of Customer Engagement and System Development noted that before getting to that Early Resolution stage there were proactive and clear communications that could be undertaken and the Children’s Services customer services steering group looked at the key themes of the complaints and issued proactive communications. He noted that the need for more staffing was the predominant recommendation from the internal audit of the Children’s Customer Relations Team, due to the increasing volume of complaints over five years. Some additional resource had recently been secured to continue to deal with the increasing complaint volumes and focus on Early Resolution.

7.    A Committee member asked what impact the internal investigator was having in Children’s Services and whether a similar appointment would be beneficial for ASC and whether the roles could be increased in Children’s Services. Concerning Children’s Services, the Customer Relations Manager noted that since the appointment of the internal investigator in July there had been a 1.5% decrease in formal investigations and a significant increase in the number of cases dealt with through mediation or peer reviews. Two internal investigators were in post and were trained mediators. The Head of Customer Engagement and System Development noted that other local authorities had to outsource external investigators, whereas the Council had saved around £60,000 by using the internal investigator concerning children’s social care complaints. He would take forward that consideration with Education Services on having more internal investigator roles and hoped that would be a temporary measure.

8.    A Committee member noted that having a balanced view of the services that were provided by the Council and learning from bad practice was vital. She asked whether good practice was reviewed such as positive feedback from residents, and how it was recorded and used. The Customer Relations Manager noted that best practice was shared through the monthly customer services steering groups and customer relations officers attended monthly practice challenge meetings, the teams also worked closely with the quality auditors in education and in social care using feedback to inform their internal audits.

9.    A Committee member highlighted that in the morning she had emailed some questions to the report authors and the Head of Customer Engagement and System Development had responded, she noted that her question on the report’s timeframe had been covered in the item’s introduction.

10.   Regarding another of her questions about clarifying the categorisations of complaints: ASC, Children, Families and Learning, and Corporate, the response was that Corporate did include highways. The Committee member noted that categorisation was not fit for purpose, and it needed to be broken down by the services they related to as soon as possible. She noted that good information needed to be added to the new system to get good outputs. The Customer Relations Manager explained that at present, geographical data could not be provided nor could the Corporate category be broken down into that much detail, she welcomed that feedback and would explore the suggestions going forward. She asked what Committee members would welcome in terms of how that would be presented in a report regarding the services listed as some services had a few formal complaints compared to others and would look to see how non-formal complaints information could be provided to the Committee.

11.   Regarding another of her questions about the population of Surrey and the number of complaints, the Committee member believed that there should be ongoing complaints statistics included ensuring transparency for residents. The Customer Relations Manager noted that of the 1.2 million residents in Surrey there were just under 3,000 formal complaints, however for highways there were over 8,000 informal contacts from residents a year.

12.   A Committee member noted that the services listed such as trees and vegetation were not Corporate services, unlike Finance, IT and Legal, and suggested that the category be renamed as ‘Other’ as it was misleading.

13.   Regarding another of her questions about whether the complaints could be categorised by borough or district, the Committee member noted the response around the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and asked why a resident could not indicate what borough or district they live in as that would provide a greater understanding of where there might be more issues. The Customer Relations Manager noted that she would explore that suggestion with the database providers, noting that it was not something that was available currently and would feedback at November’s meeting. The Head of Customer Engagement and System Development noted that the above relied on self-reporting and could not be made a compulsory response, however data could be gathered for a large number of residents. He noted that as part of the report to November’s meeting it would be useful to provide a report on the customer services steering group, identifying the problems, where those were occurring and what was being done.

14.   Regarding another of her questions about how many forms of communication the Council had to engage with residents and whether those were user friendly, the response was that the Customer and Communities Directorate was currently mapping existing touch points and user journeys as part of the Customer Strategy. The Committee member was surprised that the information was unknown and asked when a response would be given. The Head of Customer Engagement and System Development noted that the directorate had been formed two years ago and had been in the process of building up a structure of seeing what other services a complainant might be engaging with. He clarified that the directorate was undertaking that mapping exercise of touch points across the county and whether those were user friendly, to review best practice and where improvements could be made, and whether there were any gaps.

15.   As a supplementary comment on the above, the Committee member praised the current route that Members could use to report a defect or complaint via a central email address whereby issues were allocated to the relevant officers for a response within an agreed timeline. She noted the need to keep things simple and consider a similar approach for residents when communicating with the Council. The Customer Relations Manager noted that she would follow that up with the relevant lead and noted that there was more than one route for Members to report issues: through that central email address, ASC had a separate Member email address and one was being introduced for Children's Services. She noted that the team was looking to dovetail residents’ formal complaints with concerns raised to Members if they were about the same issue, as well as where concerns should be referred to the formal complaints process; completing that depended on when the vacancies could be filled.

16.   Regarding the last of her questions about whether the complaints from residents that were directed to all eighty-one Members were also incorporated within the complaints figures, she understood that only complaints made through the formal complaints process were. The Committee member asked whether those complaints could be incorporated, ensuring that the Council would be more informed in terms of the strategic issues to focus on.

17.   A Committee member understood the need for transparency in reports, however noted caution with the need to have ever more detail as the overarching picture would be lost; extra detail could be provided on request. She noted that the report was comprehensive and provided a good measure of where the Council was and what the improvements needed to be. The Vice-Chairman echoed the need for caution.

RESOLVED:

Noted the report.

Actions/further information to be provided:

1.    A7/23 - The Customer Relations Manager, the Head of Customer Engagement and System Development and the Director of Law and Governance will take Committee member’s comments and suggestions away and will report back at November’s meeting where the LGSC Annual Letter and Complaints Update, and Council Complaints – Half Yearly Update items are scheduled; areas to cover:

a)    comparative complaints figures with other local authorities.

b)    whether a similar internal investigator appointment will be beneficial for ASC and having more internal investigator roles in Education Services.

c)    consider whether the Corporate category can be renamed to ‘Other’ and explore whether it can be broken down by the services they related to as soon as possible; to liaise with Committee members on the services to be listed.

d)    consider how non-formal complaints information such as around highways that residents direct to Members, can be incorporated in future reports or provided to the Committee in another form.

e)    explore the suggestion with database providers of a response box being added to formal complaints indicating the residents’ borough or district.

f)     provide a report on the customer services steering group, identifying the problems, where those were occurring and what was being done.

g)    provide an update on the Customer and Communities Directorate’s mapping exercise of the Council’s communication touch points and whether those were user friendly.

h)    consider a similar approach of having a central email address for residents when communicating with the Council around reporting a defect or complaint and issues to be allocated to the relevant officers for a response within an agreed timeline.

i)      provide an update on dovetailing residents’ formal complaints with concerns raised to Members if they were about the same issue, as well as where concerns should be referred to the formal complaints process.