Decision details

The Customer Services Team Manager presented the report.

A Member suggested that due to the prevalence of housing complaints, they could be broken down to a more concrete level of detail. Officers confirmed that this was available and provided internally.

A Member asked several questions of the Portfolio Holder with responsibility for Customer Services. The Portfolio Holder said that he felt it was important to analyse trends in complaints for signs of where things might be failing, and felt that the process for handling complaints had improved in recent years; he had recently requested stronger democratic oversight of complaints and more Portfolio Holder awareness of stage 2 complaints; and in terms of staff conduct he was kept informed, as appropriate within the HR process.

Committee Members and the Portfolio Holder discussed the data around complaints against staff. They concluded that the data did not show a meaningful decrease and wondered what might be done to improve this in the future.

A discussion was had about the use of satisfaction surveys. The Customer Services Team Manager advised that they were working on centralising and integrating their feedback mechanisms between services, as part of the Ombudsman’s Code. They were working to get satisfaction across the board.

The Chair requested that in the future the data tracking complaints month-by-month, where it was suggested that seasonal factors impacted this, there be a comparison with previous years to evidence this claim. The Customer Services Team Manager said that she would provide this in future iterations of the report.

The Chair thanked Members for their comments, which would be presented to the Cabinet on 25 June.