Agenda item

8.1       The Strategic Lead: Inclusion and Support Services introduced the report and delivered a short presentation on the key points and insights from the report. This covered:

·         the range of mechanisms the Department have to inform their understanding of people’s experience of ASC & Health – including through enquiries from MPs and councillors, which were a valuable source of information;

·         the complaints process, which was a statutory process, and how it related to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman;

·         numbers of complaints received in recent years – ASC consistently had the highest number of complaints across Council which was due to the number of services delivered to residents, often at very challenging points in their lives, under difficult circumstances. There was a dip in complaints in 2020/21 due to deferral of the complaints process while responding to the first wave of the pandemic;

·         complaints numbers in 2021/22 had not reached pre-pandemic levels but there had been an increase in complexity. If complaints were not upheld, changes could still be made in response to concerns and feelings of dissatisfaction. The Strategic Lead explained that the presentation slides had a higher number of compliments in 2021/22 that had been covered in the report as the Department had re-counted compliments and found them to be higher;

·         how complaints and other sources of information are monitored and analysed; and

·         how the Department had used information from compliments and complaints (which often overlapped in their subject) to develop an understanding of what people value from ASC services. 

8.2       Following the presentation, the Committee discussed and asked questions about the presentation and report. These covered:

·         Complaints figures – the Committee asked whether the complaints figures cited in the report and as part of the presentation were complaints from individuals or numbers of overall complaints (including repeat complaints about one issue). The Strategic Lead confirmed that the figures would include both a single complaint from one individual and multiple complaints made by one person, but if multiple complaints by one person repeatedly covered the same issue, it would be recorded as only one complaint.

·         Language use – the Committee observed that the language used by the Council in some written communications with residents could be improved and personalised, and discussed with officers how this could be achieved. The Strategic Lead: Inclusion and Support Services recognised the importance of language in communications when dealing with residents’ concerns and complaints and noted that the Department had worked hard to ensure the language it used was as simple and jargon-free as possible, and used the sort of language officers would want to see in a response to themselves. The Director of Children’s Services added that there was a lot of emphasis in Children’s Services on responding to people with empathy and using a high degree of emotional literacy, recognising the people contacted the Council because they wanted their needs to be met and if we could not help them, that needed to be explained carefully.

·         Contact with the Council – the Committee also fed back concerns they heard from residents that they were not always able to contact the services or officers they wanted to. The importance of having an accessible system, open phone-lines and up-to-date out of office messages was noted, as well as recognition that sometimes, people with a problem wanted to be able to speak to a person about it. The Strategic Lead agreed that responsiveness and the way the Council responded when residents tried to contact us was a key issue seen in complaints and the Department knew it was an area of pressure at present.

·         Complexity of complaints – the Committee asked if the increasing complexity of complaints cited in the presentation was due to people leading more complex lives or was due to the services and processes they interacted with being more complex. The Strategic Lead responded that there was an element of both. Sometimes the complexity related to the involvement of family members and family disputes, including in situations where people the Council provided support to had full mental capacity and wanted to do one thing, while family members wanted them to do something else, which could be challenging to navigate. At the same time, the pathways into the Department for accessing services were very diverse and it was also recognised that the eligibility criteria for accessing services was high which meant seeing people at higher levels of, and with unpredictable, need. When this combined with issues around safeguarding, and other factors such as deprivation, it could become a really difficult situation to navigate. 

The Committee asked as a follow-up question how councillors could best help residents navigate complex services and systems to access support. The Strategic Lead responded that it was best to point residents to guidance from the Department and that Health and Social Care Connect could support with signposting and talking through services available. There are also other providers such as Care for the Carers and Age Concern who were familiar with processes and could provide support and guidance with navigating them.

·         Response time – the Committee observed that often residents were contacting the Council with a complaint when they were frustrated, and having to wait twenty working days for a response could exacerbate that. The Committee asked whether there was scope to reduce that, what the average response time was and whether there was an agreed intended response time for follow-up complaints. The Strategic Lead acknowledged that every complaint was important to the person that had made it and twenty working days could feel like a long time for a response. While the Department worked to resolve complaints as quickly as possible, it was also important to ensure the issue was explored and understood thoroughly so that it could be responded to accurately. There was therefore often limited scope to reduce the response time without risking an unhelpful or inaccurate response. The Strategic Lead explained that average response times were reported in the Department’s annual report on complaints and these had reduced from average response times of previous years. It was also noted that sometimes complaints could be responded to well within twenty working days, for example, if there was an issue that needed to be looked at immediately it would be referred to the Team responsible for consideration. In terms of the ambition for follow-up complaints or questions, if people had follow-up questions to their response, the Department would respond to those as soon as possible. The Assistant Director for Strategy, Commissioning and Supply Management added that the Department appreciated the situation could be frustrating for residents but the Department also needed to manage expectations and would not want to reduce the intended response time and then not be able to meet it.

·         Unreasonable complaints – the Committee asked if there was a stage at which the Council would close a complaint because the same complaint had been submitted numerous times. The Strategic Lead responded that the Council had an Unreasonable Customer Behaviour Policy which would be applied in situations where people were not accepting a response. These could be challenging situations to manage and the key was applying the policy well and fairly, and giving people fair notice that their behaviour was becoming unreasonable.

8.3       The Chair thanked the Strategic Lead for the presentation.