Agenda item

To provide an overview of the Authority’s closed complaints for the year 1 April 2018 - 31 March 2019 and to ensure compliance with the requirement to publish a report on complaints under the relevant statutory complaint legislation. 

Cabinet considered a report which detailed complaint related activity during 2018-19 and which complied with the requirement to publish a report on complaints under the relevant statutory complaints legislation.

The Authority undertook millions of transactions with its 206,000 residents and over five million visitors to the Borough throughout the year.  Against that background, the number of complaints received by the Authority remained consistently low, reflecting the excellent services the Authority’s customers received and its ability to resolve swiftly any issues that did arise at the first point of contact.

The number of formal complaints had decreased during 2018-19 compared to the previous year as the Authority continued to take a proactive approach to encouraging residents and service users to provide feedback.  The Authority’s complaint leaflet entitled ‘How to complain about Council services’ was widely available in the Authority’s buildings and to download from the Authority’s website.  It was also now easy for customers to contact the Authority on-line, and Social Care Service users were provided with a complaint leaflet at the first point of contact.    

Customer satisfaction with the complaints process remained relatively high and the Authority continued to resolve the vast majority of complaints at Stage 1. The Authority welcomed complaints as valuable feedback from its customers and complaint outcomes provided valuable lessons to further improve and enhance the Authority’s services and procedures.

The Authority operated statutory complaint procedures for Adult Social Care

and Children and Young People’s Services and Public Health.  It also

provided a corporate complaints procedure for all other services. 

During 2018-19, the Authority had responded to Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) enquiries in a timely fashion and was well within the required timescale for response of 28 days. The LGSCO’s annual review of complaints for 2018-19 was detailed in the report at Appendix 2.

The Authority’s complaints service report for 2018-19 at Appendix 1 showed that the overall number of formal complaints had decreased by 10% in comparison to 2017-18 (973 complaints and 1,070 complaints respectively). 

The number of social care complaints (relating to both Adult Social Care and

Children and Young People’s Services) had decreased slightly from 126 in 2017-18 to 97 in 2018-19 (42 cases in Children’s Social Services and 55 cases in Adult Social Care). 

A breakdown of the numbers and categories of complaints was provided in the report.

A survey of complainants’ experiences of, and satisfaction with, the complaints service undertaken in respect of complaints handled during 2018-19 had resulted in 11% of forms being returned. The majority of respondents had found it easy to find information about the service and said that staff were helpful, that they were happy with the length of time taken to respond to their complaint, and that the content of the response letter had been easy to understand. Overall 59% of customers thought the complaints process was good.

A number of changes had been made to procedures and practice in services as a result of complaints resolved during 2018-19, examples of which were detailed in the report.

A continuing area of development was partnership working, where services were provided on behalf of the Authority in conjunction with other public, voluntary and private sector organisations.  Such change had potential for complaint processes to become complex, so arrangements were in place to ensure the customer’s experience was as straightforward as possible.  Securing the efficient handling of complaints was a vital component of ongoing arrangements with the Authority’s current and any potential future partners. 

Complaints were now widely recognised as integral to the provision of quality services at both individual and strategic levels.  The Authority’s successful history and current good practice in effective complaint handling would be an integral service improvement driver in the current rapidly changing culture.  The demands of maintaining and increasing levels of customer satisfaction, coupled with organisational changes across public and partner sectors, would be well supported by the current robust complaint handling procedures and electronic system in place.

The Mayor referred to the comparatively low level of complaints and referrals to the LGSCO and thanked the staff for their efforts particularly in the light of increasing pressures on local authority services and the number and complexity of services provided by the Authority.

Cabinet considered the following decision options: to agree the recommendations as set out in section 1.2 of the report; or alternatively, to not approve the recommendations and refer back to officers and request that further analysis and information is provided.

Resolved that (1) the complaint related activity during 2018-19, as set out in the annual complaints report, at Appendix 1, be noted;

(2) the annual complaints report be approved for publication by the Head of Law and Governance; and 

(3) the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman’s annual review of complaints concerning North Tyneside Council for 2018-19, as set out in Appendix 2 to the report, be noted.

(Reason for decision: All local authorities providing social service functions including North Tyneside Council are required to publish an annual report on complaints received. Publication of a report also supports community engagement and promotes transparency and opportunities for organisational improvement.)