Agenda item

To give the Audit & Governance Committee an overview of the nature of complaints received by the Council and complaint handling performance in 2023/24 and to demonstrate how feedback from customers has been used to improve services.

Witnesses:

Jessica Brooke, Customer Relations Manager

Tracey Sanders, Assistant Director - Inclusion and Additional Needs

Luke Entwistle, Assistant Director - Quality Relationships

Sue Grizzelle, Head of Customer Services

Key points raised in the discussion:

1.    The Customer Relations Manager introduced the report and noted that across the three teams there was a 5% increase in complaints from the previous year. There was a 68% decrease in Home to School Transport complaints which reflected the changed approach and structure, a 26% increase in Adults, Wellbeing and Health Partnerships (AWHP) complaints which reflected the changes in how care was funded with families having to contribute, a 6% decrease in Children, Families and Lifelong Learning (CFLL) complaints, and a 38% increase in all other corporate services which reflected the Council taking over the accountability for parking enforcement and verge cutting from the district and borough councils.

2.    The Customer Relations Manager noted that the increased volume of complaints highlighted the accessible complaints procedure and commitment to consider feedback received both positive and negative to improve the services delivered. Each customer relations team recorded and monitored the actions arising from customer feedback. The root cause of many of the complaints was the inadequate level of communication, it must be proactive for example through website updates.

3.    The Customer Relations Manager explained that complaints about Education Services reflected the ongoing national challenges around provision, the service sought to ensure the right level of support for families at the right time. The Learners' Single Point of Access (L-SPA) was vital.

4.    The Customer Relations Manager noted that the financial remedies more than doubled when compared to the previous year, AWHP increased to £15,400 from £1,550 and CFLL increased to £525,211 from £258,730. A significant amount of the remedies reflected the changes by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman in financial redress, for example £100 was paid monthly until an agreed Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) or assessed provision was in place. The delays were attributed to the shortage of Educational Psychologists (EPs), an increase in the cohort of children undergoing EHC Needs Assessment and backdated payments for missed provision.

5.    The Customer Relations Manager referred to the recommendation noting that inclusion of complaints within the Risk Register followed the review which recognised that whilst the potential for complaints was integral to customer facing roles, there was a high number of complaints received in CFLL and the associated remediation payments was a risk, there were actions to address the root cause.

6.    The Customer Relations Manager noted that the focus over the next year was to work with the services to deliver training and for them to obtain feedback and learn from that, to continue to embed an early resolution programme, to continue to avoid an increase in unnecessary complaints and to work with senior leaders in the delivery of the Customer Service Transformation Programme.

7.    A Committee member asked what level of root cause analysis was undertaken to understand how large a part in the EHCP delays the shortage of EPs was, and what the other factors were. The Assistant Director - Inclusion and Additional Needs explained that there was a recovery plan and the Council was nearing national levels for assessments. The national shortage of EPs was a key factor in the delays, Surrey was below 50% of its establishment and therefore contracted external EPs. There were also delays in the processing of annual reviews of EHCPs, the annual review recovery team was working to address the timeliness.

8.    A Committee member asked whether the increase in financial redress payments for complaints from the Ombudsman was anticipated and whether that was included in the risk register. The Customer Relations Manager explained that part way through the year the Ombudsman changed the way that they managed complaints at a national level from recommending lump sums to a monthly remedy until provision was put in place. That change could not have been anticipated and the Council and other local authorities challenged that and was working with them. The Assistant Director - Quality Relationships provided reassurance that there was a substantial amount of work underway to address complaints at the earliest point, through restorative practice and improving communication, and to pay remedies earlier. The Council had an improvement plan to reduce the number of complaints.

9.    A Committee member asked whether complaints not considered as part of the procedure were being measured and where, such as data breaches in Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). The Customer Relations Manager explained that complaints outside the remit of the complaint procedures were recorded and measured by the relevant team, decisions were made on each case.

10.  The Chairman asked when the improvement plan was put into place and when were improvements expected to be seen. The Assistant Director - Quality Relationships highlighted that the additional needs and disability improvement plan sought to improve communication and relationships through a delivery group. The Assistant Director - Inclusion and Additional Needs noted that communication had been a concern for the SEND service and there were challenges around vacancy rates whereby backlogs developed. SEND staffing had since doubled and was stable and a Communications Protocol was put in place as case officers had not been clear of expected response times, they had since received training on taking a sympathetic approach; senior case managers oversaw complaints to ensure response timeliness. There was also an end-to-end review of the SEND statutory process for case officers to have enough information to respond to parents and to strengthen their ability to make decisions; those measures would be in place from September 2025. A SEND communication hub had been set up, officers were proactively communicating with families around specific issues, enquiries were triaged and complaints regarding communications had dipped. The Cabinet Member for Children, Families and Lifelong Learning noted that the improvement plan followed from the joint Care Quality Commission inspection of the SEND services in September 2023, and was monitored by the Department for Education.

11.  A Committee member asked about the Ombudsman's guidance to provide financial remedies earlier, who made those decisions and was there guidance on how much could be paid out. The Customer Relations Manager explained that the Ombudsman provided guidance on the recommended remedies and the service decided the amount, the Council also reviewed published cases concerning other local authorities and the Council’s historic cases to seek comparisons. 

12.  A Committee member welcomed the decrease in Home to School Transport complaints. Noting the Cabinet’s £15 million investment into addressing the EHCP delays whereby those complaints had started to reduce, asked whether it was expected that the increase in EHCP applications would also start to reduce. The Assistant Director - Inclusion and Additional Needs noted that EHCP assessment requests had reduced slightly from the previous year, attributable to the preventative measures. The Ordinarily Available Provision document provided clarity on the expected provision by schools to SEND children and a multitude of support was available such as specialist teachers for inclusive practice, Speech and Language Therapists and support from other agencies. The backlog of old EHC Needs Assessment requests was being tackled, which meant a higher number of EHCPs being issued, that should stabilise going forward.

13.  A Committee member reflected on the concerns regarding communications and asked why officers were not clear about the timeframes as there was a clear procedure in place. Asked what was meant by case officers not having control of the whole process and asked why measures from the end-to-end review could not be put in place sooner than September 2025 to be proactive. The Assistant Director - Inclusion and Additional Needs explained that officers had not been consistent in their responses and until a year ago had not been given a directive from management about when to respond by.

14.  As a supplementary on the above, the Committee member highlighted the number of complaints from residents about the lack of response and that should have been simple to correct and asked whether it was the case that officers did not have training or procedures in place, or that they just did not follow those. The Assistant Director - Inclusion and Additional Needs noted that the issue around a consistent understanding of expectation regarding communications had been resolved.

15.  A Committee member referred to the proactive follow-up by officers with parents of children without schools to get them allocated, noting that allocating children as quickly as possible should be procedural and asked how that was being addressed. The Assistant Director - Inclusion and Additional Needs referred to the Internal Audit report which recognised that officers responded to parents and proactively communicated, there was positive feedback. She noted that whilst part of business as usual, there was dedicated resource for case officers to contact parents around progress regarding key stage transfer during that anxious time, it enabled case officers to meet their targets and address the backlog.

16.  A Committee member referred to the shortage of EPs and asked why more EPs could not be contracted by the Council to deal with the backlog, the failings to children and financial penalties warranted additional spend. The Assistant Director - Inclusion and Additional Needs noted that the Council had commissioned over 1,000 EPs from external agencies and had cleared the backlog. The Cabinet Member for Children, Families and Lifelong Learning noted that she had raised the issues of the national shortage of EPs and the difficulty in recruitment for local authorities with the Government’s Children's Minister and with Surrey MPs.

17.  The Chairman asked how the Council compared with other local authorities regarding the complaints in Children’s Services. The Customer Relations Manager noted that each local authority published its annual complaints report so that information could be gathered. The Assistant Director - Quality Relationships noted that information was benchmarked and he would provide that. 

18.  A Committee member asked when the Council’s Pensions Service’s separate report on complaints received by the service to the respective committee was scheduled. He noted that pensions complaints were dealt with through a separate procedure, yet the report also stated that it would fall under the corporate complaints procedure covering all other services. The Customer Relations Manager clarified that there were three main complaints procedures, but five in total as the complaints procedure about pensions and the complaints procedure about internal personnel matters mirrored the corporate complaints procedure, those two procedures were separate as they had different escalation routes.

19.  A Committee member referred to the Early Resolution and use of online complaints form section and asked how the complaints received manually were entered into the system and tracked. He also asked how many contacts came in via non-electronic methods. The Customer Relations Manager explained that the three complaints teams in the business support unit manually add complaints into the customer record system, a reference number was allocated and the complaint was monitored and tracked in the same way as self-served complaints. She would provide the information requested regarding contacts via non-electronic methods.

20.  A Committee member noted that the Customer Relations Team worked with Highways colleagues to improve response performance through localised training and webinars, yet as the same processes were used across the Council asked why there was a difference in the barriers and challenges to timely responses. The Customer Relations Manager outlined the different tiers of the complaints processes between services. She noted that Highways faced challenges this year as they took on additional work from the borough and district councils, there was also challenges around their response and engagement with the process. There was a programme to engage engineers and operational colleagues so that they understand the role of the complaints process and vice versa. Five training sessions had been delivered and complaints were being addressed sooner, building in the work of the Customer Service Transformation Programme.

21.  A Committee member asked what needed to be done for the CFLL services to improve from 75% to meet the target of 80% compliance. The Assistant Director - Quality Relationships noted the comprehensive work underway such as investing in restorative practice training across the directorate, focused initially on additional disability services, investment in additional customer relations resource, increased training and development for staff, improving quality assurance practices, customer champions across the services to focus on communication and plain English training. In May nearly 100% of complaints in SEND services were responded to within 15 working days, the average response time now was less than 10 working days and enquiry responses averaged under 10 working days.

22.  The Chairman noted that most of the work was based on training, it seemed like work was starting from scratch for staff who should be experienced. He asked what the benefit to the customer of staff training was and what did the training to create a stronger customer ethos across the organisation mean. The Customer Relations Manager noted that despite the large cohort of children with EHCPs the number of complaints received in SEND was only 10% of those. The Council had regular staff turnover and organisational changes, work was underway to identify the pockets of recruitment. Training for frontline officers enabled them to understand their key role in the complaints process. To develop the ethos now, there was training on the Ombudsman’s code which comes into force in 2026. The Head of Customer Services explained that the Customer Service Transformation Programme sought to change the organisation’s culture through training and communication - many complaints were avoidable - ensuring that all staff are aware of their responsibility.

23.  The Chairman noted that the benefits of the improvement plan would not be seen until September 2025 onwards and asked whether it was expected that the financial redress payments would flatline because of the work underway. The Assistant Director - Inclusion and Additional Needs confirmed that was the expectation. The SEND service welcomed that additional training to new staff and to upskill existing staff, a Communications Protocol set out the expectations and there were actions for management to ensure they monitor complaints activity.

24.  The Vice-Chairman sought assurance that the situation had stabilised and future improvement would be made, and asked whether the problems causing those complaints was improving and those dealing with the delivery were engaged. The Customer Relations Manager noted that the report reflected complaints gathered last year and the areas of fault would have happened a year prior. It was expected that there would be a downturn in complaints received and an upturn in service delivery. The Assistant Director - Inclusion and Additional Needs highlighted that the end-to-end review of the SEND service was addressing many of the causes of complaints and worked closely with the Customer Relations Team on the matter.

25.  A Committee member hoped that the improvement plan following the Ofsted inspection and Cabinet’s £15 million investment and EHCP recovery plan over the next three years would lead to a reduction in complaints and an increase in performance in SEND. The Cabinet Member for Children, Families and Lifelong Learning confirmed that was expected, drawing a parallel with the escalation in Home to School Transport complaints the year before last whereby complaints reduced due to investment and the strengthening of procedures, and the service improved. She noted that the Council was back at national levels of timeliness for EHC Needs Assessments having dealt with the backlog of 1,000 children.  

26.  A Committee member asked whether the issue of missed provision and remedy payments would reduce with the increase of EPs and the timeliness of EHCPs would increase. The Assistant Director - Inclusion and Additional Needs confirmed that was expected.

27.  A Committee member asked whether the Committee could have sight of the recommendations around addressing the cause of missed provision relating to children missing education for other reasons. The Assistant Director - Inclusion and Additional Needs would liaise with the relevant assistant director regarding the recommendations on the programme of work around children missing education.

28.  The Chairman asked whether the financial redress included legal costs incurred by the Council. The Customer Relations Manager clarified that there were no legal costs for the Council to pay, the financial remedies related to injustice based on the Ombudsman’s guidelines. Only in exceptional circumstances in the past had the Ombudsman directed the Council to cover legal costs incurred by a complainant regarding an associated process.  

29.  The Chairman and Vice-Chairman thanked officers for their hard work and looked forward to seeing the improvements in next year’s annual report.

RESOLVED:

That the Committee noted the report, specifically the complaint management processes in place, the inclusion of complaints within the Risk Register and the manner in which the feedback derived from complaints contributes to service improvements.

Actions/further information to be provided:

1.    A12/24 - The Assistant Director - Quality Relationships will provide the information benchmarked from other local authorities regarding the complaints in Children’s Services, as gathered from their annual complaints report.

2.    A13/24 - The Customer Relations Manager will provide the information requested regarding the number of contacts received via non-electronic methods.

3.    A14/24 - The Assistant Director - Inclusion and Additional Needs will liaise with the relevant assistant director to provide the recommendations on the programme of work around children missing education.