Agenda item

The Scrutiny & Overview Committee is provided with an overview of the Annual Complaints for 2022-2023, alongside copies of the annual reporting figures, for their information and is asked to consider whether they wish to make any recommendations based on the content of the reports.

The Committee considered a report set out in agenda supplement 2 that provided a summary and analysis of the complaints received by the Council in the 2022-23 year. This report was included on the agenda for the Committee to review the information provided regarding complaints and consider whether to make any recommendations as a result.

The Cabinet Member for Finance, Councillor Jason Cummings, Chief Executive, Katherine Kerswell, Corporate Director for Resources & Section 151 Officer, Jane West, Director of Finance, Allister Bannin, Assistant Chief Executive, Elaine Jackson and Corporate Directors Nick Hibberd, Debbie Jones, Annette McPartland, Susmita Sen, Interim Chief Digital Officer & Director of Resident Access, Paul Golland, Head of Resident Contact, Lisa Wheatley and Complaints Manager, Kim Hyland were in attendance for this item at the meeting.

Prior to questioning the information provided in the report, the Vice-Chair provided a summary of the responses received from both the public and local support organisations such as the CAB and the South West London Law Centre from a request made by the Committee for feedback on the Council’s complaints process. Common themes from the responses received included the length of time it took to receive a response to a complaint, not being provided with a named contact for a complaint and the process not being clear whether a formal complaint had been submitted or not. It was agreed that officers would contact the support organisations to discuss these concerns in greater detail.

The first question from the Committee asked why Croydon had such a high number of stage one complaints. It was advised that Croydon was a large, highly populated borough and the Council was facing a number of challenges. Although there was a high number of stage one complaints, the only directorates where the level of complaints had increased in comparison to the previous year were Childrens and Housing.

It was acknowledged that the Housing directorate was starting from a low base when it came to complaints, but it was also an opportunity to learn from the findings to improve the service going forward.  There was a range of work underway within Housing to understand why the complaints process was not working as expected, to map the process and to align it with the Housing Ombudsman Complaint Code. The status of complaints was reviewed on a weekly basis, but it was highlighted that the system may worsen in the short term while the needed improvement was delivered. The Committee welcomed the open assessment on the current standard of complaints handling within the Housing directorate and looked forward to seeing progress when the annual report was next considered.

It was confirmed that as part of the complaints management system, data was collated and analysed to understand where there were larger issues. The results of which were being fed back to services, to allow them to address and improve. Each service had a named complaints officers who would lead on the response to Stage 1 complaints, which provided oversight over the type of complaints being received. The Complaints team met on a weekly basis to review Stage 2 complaints which also helped to pick up any wider issues. It was highlighted that complaints relating to waste collection were down from the previous year, which could be taken as an indication that learning from complaints was being actioned.

It was questioned whether the Council used call recording to verify conversations with residents that had resulted in a complaint. It was advised that call recording would be in place within the contact centre by the end of November 2023. The introduction of recording had been delayed to ensure that there was a process in place to take customer payments, while maintaining their privacy. This had now been resolved, enabling the recording system to be turned on and once it had been tested on the contact centre it would be rolled out across the organisation.

At the conclusion of the item, the Chair thanked the Cabinet Member and officers for their engagement with the questions of the Committee.

Actions

The Scrutiny & Overview Committee agreed the following actions arising from their discussion of this item: -

1. To request feedback on any engagement with local advice groups on the Council’s complaint handling process.

Conclusions

Having reviewed the report and the information provided at the meeting, the Scrutiny & Overview Committee reached the following conclusions on the Annual Complaints Report: -

1. The Committee welcomed the honest evaluation of the complaints handling processes within the Housing service which, it was acknowledged, were starting from a low base. However, there was reassurance given that a significant amount of work was underway to improve these processes to ensure that complaints were being used to inform improvement throughout the service.
2. The Committee welcomed confirmation of the forthcoming introduction of call recording within the contact centre, agreeing that it would be another tool to strengthen the complaints process. Endorsement was also given to the approach of rolling out call recording across the wider organisation once sufficient safeguards were in place to the safe management of customer data.
3. The Committee welcomed the openness of officers to the suggestion that there should be engagement with local advice services, such as the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) or South West London Law Centre, to hear both theirs and their customers experience of the Council’s complaints process.