Agenda item

To review the council’s complaints activity and response performance for 2023-24.

The Chairman noted that on page 35 of the agenda pack was a report presenting the Council’s Annual Complaints report for 2023-24.  It was outlined that the report would also be considered by the Standards Committee on 3 October, as the committee that oversees the council’s complaints handling arrangements.

Cllr Ashley O’Neill, Cabinet Member for Governance, IT, Broadband, Digital, and Staffing introduced the report with it noted that in comparison to neighbouring local authorities, Wiltshire Council had the lowest number of upheld complaints by the Ombudsman and was better than the national average. Furthermore, the five-year trend of the Council’s complaints handling was on a positive downward trend.

Henry Powell, Democracy and Complaints Manager, provided the Committee with a presentation which included, but was not limited to, the following points:

·       The Annual report covered 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024 but excluded complaints about elected Members and complaints about the Police and Crime Commissioner.

·       Detail was provided regarding service requests, which had decreased by 4% with it also noted that the number of complaints received by the Council had increased by 20%.

·       Detail was provided regarding the complaints received by service area, with Education and Skills having received the most, however this was largely down to SEND and ECHP related matters.

·       A breakdown of the service requests received was provided, with the amount received by Highways, Transport and Streetscene having increased by 46%.

·       Further detail was provided regarding the percentage of complaints upheld by the Ombudsman, with it suggested that Wiltshire Council had a good level of customer service and overall complaint handling relative to other unitary councils nationally and in the southwest region.

·       A breakdown of the response times for complaints was provided, with it noted that the percentage of stage one complaint responses provided on time had decreased to 59%, while the percentage of stage two complaint responses provided on time had increased to 92%.

·       It was noted that from 21 October 2024 there would be less time to respond to complaints at both Stage one and two if agreed by Full Council, with the new timescales potentially being 10 working days shorter and that services were being made aware and prepared for the change.

·       Actions for 2024/25 were outlined with detail provided on how improvements would be made.

Perry Holmes, Director for Legal and Governance commented that an improvement had been made by the Complaints Team and that though a valid point had been made about capacity and resource of teams, there was not a choice to respond to complaints and the whole Council had a responsibility. Therefore, Directors had been asked to identify where there had been increases, which could then be collated and reported to Select Committees.

Members of the Committee made the following comments with reference drawn in relation to the number of housing complaints to which clarity was provided by the Leader that there had been more complaints following the pandemic, there had been a national trend relating to housing complaints regarding mould and that the Council, was also being inspected which drove complaints up.

A point was made that it was unclear how residents would be able to place a complaint, however there was an awareness of officer time, and resources required to handle increased complaints. It was also suggested that it could be positive for the data to be simplified as there seemed to be a crossover between qualitative and quantitative data.

Reference was made to how previously there had been a Task Group investigating customer experience considering websites and apps, with it suggested that this could possibly be a useful mechanism to consider the complaints experience for residents.

At the conclusion of discussion, it was,

Resolved:

The Overview and Scrutiny Management Committee agreed:

a)    To note the Wiltshire Council Annual Complaints Report 2023-24, including the issues identified through complaints data and the reported actions in place to address these.

b)    To note the actions to improve the council’s complaints handling function over the next 12 months.

c)    To ask the Select Committee Chairs and Vice-chairs to consider if the report raises service issues within their remit that require more in-depth scrutiny.