Issue - meetings

Committee considered a report which provided information contained within the Annual Letter from the Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) 2019/20 which was appended to the report.

The LGSCO letter contained an annual summary of statistics on the complaints made about the Authority for the financial year ending 31^st March 2020.  Committee was asked to note that the data provided by the LGSCO may not align with the data the Council held as the LGSCO numbers included enquiries from people who had been signposted back to the Council by the LGSCO but then the enquirer(s) may have chosen not to pursue their complaint. 

Key points;

·         The LGSCO had received 11 enquiries and complaints during 2019/20, four of which were subject to a detailed investigation.

·         The LGSCO decided 16 complaints, of which 2 were incomplete or invalid, 8 were closed after initial enquiries, 2 were referred back to the Council and 3 were ‘no maladministration’.  The remaining one was decided as ‘maladministration and injustice’.  This was a particularly complex case and fault was found in the delays which occurred. 

Benchmarking information looking at close neighbouring authorities comparative figures was contained in the report or Committee’s information.

One complaint was upheld against the Council (25%) which may seem high but this was based on a small number on detailed investigations (4 in this period). 

The LGSCO had upheld 61% of complaints submitted to them in 2019/20 – this was an increase from 58% in 2018/19 with the average being 45% for similar authorities.

The Council also received 1 complaint via the Housing Ombudsman (HO), for the same period, which was also reviewed by them.  In both cases the decision was to ‘close the case and there was no maladministration’.

A Member noted the training courses referred to in the LGSCO letter and queried how many of the Council’s staff had attended courses to improve their skills.  The Customer Standards and Complaints Officer replied that she attended the LGSCO course each year.  The Council had also hosted a training event in 2018 on behalf of the Planning Ombudsman (PO) which included neighbouring authorities.  Although, the PO did not deal with planning decision complaints they did deal with complaints about how these had been administered by the Council.  Currently online courses were being offered by the PO and the Customer Standards and Complaints Officer was arranging for relevant staff to attend these.

Moved by Councillor Rose Bowler and seconded by Councillor Andrew Joesbury

RESOVLED that the report be noted.

The Customer Standards and Complaints Officer, Councillors Mary Dooley and Andrew Joesbury left the meeting.