Agenda item

The Customer Standards and Complaints Officer presented the report to the Committee to provide information on the Council’s performance in relation to its customer service standards and the number of Compliments, Comments and Complaints received for Quarter 3 2025/26 (1^st October 2025 to 31^st December 2025).

A breakdown of the key customer service standards by quarterly period, together with the target and the cumulative performance for each standard, was attached at Appendixes 1 and 2 of the report.

Revenues had achieved 88% of incoming calls answered within 20 seconds for Quarter 3 2025/26 (target 70%).

Benefits had achieved 90% of incoming calls answered within 20 seconds for Quarter 3 2025/26 (target 80%).

In Quarter 3 2025/26, Revenues and Benefits had received 6,155 emails – all acknowledged within 1 working day.

For Quarter 3 2025/26, Contact Centres had achieved: 81% of incoming calls answered within 20 seconds (target 75%); abandoned 2% of incoming calls (target less than 3%); and the average waiting time was 26 seconds (target not exceeding 30 seconds).

In the same period, Contact Centres had acknowledged all 6,560 email enquiries received within 1 working day (meeting the target of 100%), with 99.7% of emails replied to within 8 working days (target was 100%).

Contact Centres had answered 87% of incoming Live Chats within 20 seconds for Quarter 3 2025/26 (target 90%), with 557 chats answered out of 562 in total.  In Quarter 3 2025/26, all 4 Contact Centres and The Arc’s Meet & Greet Reception Desk had received 6,441 visitors.

Face-to-face monitoring took place week commencing 17^th November 2025 to measure waiting times – 572 customers had visited during that week, with an average waiting time of 1.2 minutes (target was seeing 100% of customers within 20 minutes).

76 Compliments had been received during Quarter 3 2025/26, with Go! Active receiving 2 Customer Feedback Form Compliments within this time.

8 Comments had been received with all acknowledged and passed to the respective department within the target time of 5 working days during Quarter 3 2025/26.  Go! Active had received 10 Customer Feedback Form Comments within this time.

57 Stage 1 Complaints had been recorded in Quarter 3 2025/26, with 12 M.P. Enquiries received within this time.  100% of Stage 1 Complaints and 100% M.P. Enquiries had been responded to within the Council’s Customer Service Standard of 10 working days – the average response time for Stage 1 Complaints was 4.5  working days.

8 Stage 2 Complaints had been recorded in Quarter 3 2025/25.  100% of Stage 2 Complaints had been responded to within the Council’s Customer Service Standard of 20 working days – the average response time for Stage 2 Complaints was 10 working days.

No Local Government Ombudsman Complaints had been received during Quarter 3 2025/26.

The following service improvement examples:

·       service requests would now be included in comment and complaintacknowledgements, so a customer was aware the issue at hand was being dealt with as well as a Complaint raised;

·       the Gas team were looking into changing the wording on the gas service letters regarding pre-pay meters.  The Gas team had ensured their system stipulated whether a morning or afternoon appointment had been arranged, which notified the Engineer; and,

·       the Joint Environmental Health Service would consider additional measures of delivering a Notice of Intended Entry (NOIE), such as an email copy, in the future as a safeguard,

were provided in the report and at the meeting (following receipt of applicable Comments and Complaints).

Additional service improvement updates were also provided at the meeting, including:

·       Completion of the new Equality Impact Assessments for the Compliments, Comments and Complaints Policy and Standards and Vex Policy – all had been approved by the Information and Engagement Manager;

·       From 1^st April 2026 the Council would cease the use of the term Dragonfly in all its reports (approaching the end of the financial year, the Council would not be able to change the classification of its Complaints;

·       From April 1^st 2026, the Council would utilise a new Complaints system called ‘Infreemation’ – this should not affect the way the Council’s Managers responded to Complaints, though the Complaints Team would communicate any small changes to Managers in due course;

·       The Housing Liaison Board (the ‘Board’) had requested the Council change the way repairs Complaints were delivered to the Board.  It had been noted that repairs received the most Compliments and Complaints for tenant related Complaints.  The Board would like to know the percentage of Complaints received compared to the number of repair works completed.  The Council was working with repairs to see if they could provide figures to enable the Complaint’s Team to complete this work.  It had been requested that the same was done for different Housing Teams, however this would likely prove difficult due to the numerous communication methods delivered by the Housing Team and not all contact / visits / emails were being logged onto a single system; and,

·       The Housing Ombudsman had provided the Council a first review of the Compliments, Comments and Complaints Policy on the 19^th March 2026. The report had contained 10 amendment recommendations for consideration of the Compliments, Comments and Complaints Policy.  The Complaints Team would review these recommendations and make the necessary changes before it was presented to the Committee.

Moved by Councillor Rita Turner and seconded by Councillor Emma Stevenson

RESOLVED that the Customer Services Scrutiny Committee note the overall performance on Customer Service Standards and Compliments, Comments and Complaints.