21 June 2006
Ms Moira Gibb
Chief Executive
London Borough of Camden
Town Hall
Judd Street
London WC1H 9JE
Our ref: TR/annual letter/JP
(Please quote our reference when contacting us)
If telephoning contact: Richard Shaw on 020 7217 4669
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Dear Ms Gibb
Annual Letter 2005/06
I am writing to give you my reflections on the complaints received against your authority and dealt with by my office over the last year. I hope that in reviewing your own performance you will find this letter a useful addition to other information you hold highlighting how people experience or perceive your services.
This year we will publish all our annual letters or our website (www.lgo.org.uk) and share them with the Audit Commission. There is widespread support from authorities for us to do this. We will wait for four weeks after this letter before doing so, to give you an opportunity to consider the letter first. If a letter is found to contain any factual inaccuracy we will reissue it.
In addition to the narrative below there are two attachments which form an integral part of this letter: statistical data covering a three year period and a note to help the interpretation of the statistics.
Complaints received
Last year we received 224 complaints against your Council, a decrease on the previous year’s total of 258. There were significant falls in the number of housing complaints (from 130 to 100) and in complaints about housing benefit (from 21 to 5). The fall in housing benefit complaints is in line with the national profile although the reduction in housing complaints is significantly greater than the trend. The majority of complaints against your Council were still about housing, but they formed a lower proportion of the overall total.
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Contrary to other trends, the number of highways complaints more than doubled (from 24 to 51). You may wish to consider whether there are any underlying reasons for this: nationally, complaints about highways declined by 5.2%. Many of your highways complaints concerned parking. This can be a contentious area and in recognition of this in December 2004 my colleagues and I published a Special Report “Parking enforcement by local authorities”. A copy was sent to you at the time. It can also be downloaded from my website.
Decisions on complaints
Reports and local settlements
When we complete an investigation we must issue a report. There is a significant proportion of investigations that do not reach this stage. This is because we settle the complaint during the course of our investigation. We call these decisions “local settlements”. Last year I issued no formal reports about your Council but I concluded 49 as local settlements, an increase from 27 in 2004/05.
Action taken by the Council to remedy injustice in local settlement cases included the payment of about £23,000 compensation. This is significantly more than the year before (about £10,000). Other settlements involved changes to procedures, providing refunds and credits, undertaking works and, importantly, giving apologies.
The figure for compensation includes a single payment of £7,786. In this case the Council wrongly concluded that planning permission was not required for a roof extension. But the complainant, a neighbour, sought their own legal advice which demonstrated that permission was required and the Council subsequently agreed with this view. The Council agreed to reimburse the complainants legal fees and time and trouble costs.
The Council settled four complaints about delay or failure to take action in response to problems with repairs to Council housing. The remedies included carrying out the necessary repairs and making payments to recognise the distress and unnecessary time and trouble caused by the delay. In one case the Council agreed to change its proposed remedy for delay from a rent reduction, which did not benefit the complainant who was receiving housing benefit to a lump sum equivalent. I know that there has been a reorganisation of the housing repairs department in the last year and the Council had concerns about the disruption caused. But the number of local settlements to remedy injustice in this area is lower than in the previous year.
In one homelessness complaint there was a delay of seven months by the Council in dealing with an application from a complainant fleeing domestic violence. Despite repeated interviews the Council failed to add her name to the housing register even once it accepted she was homeless. There was also delay by the Council in responding to my inquiries about this matter. However, the Council did then agree to provide additional housing points to the complainant and pay her £350.
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In four cases settlements were agreed about complaints from Council leaseholders. These included two complaints about damage caused to properties by the Council contractors, delays in preparing a final service charge bill and disruption to hot water supplies. As you know my staff have previously met with Council officers about problems with delayed leaseholder service charges; you may wish to consider if there are any more general issues that these complaints raise for the Council.
I agreed settlements in three social services cases relating to delay in carrying out assessments, in providing information or responding to inquiries. The Council agreed to pay compensation and in one case recognised the need to review its procedures for assessing care needs. I would be grateful to be informed of the outcome of this review.
The national average for local settlements is 25.8% of complaints I may pursue, so the Council’s figure of 36% is higher than usual. Where I get relatively few complaints I would be reluctant to draw conclusions from such a figure. But it does seem that more complaints about your Council are justified than is common.
Other findings
Of the other decisions that I made, 36 were that the Council was not at fault and in 49cases I used my discretion to discontinue the investigation, generally because there was insufficient injustice to the complainant to warrant my involvement.
I concluded that 42 complaints were outside my jurisdiction. Of these just over half (22) related to highways matters with the second largest category (8 complaints) concerning housing matters. In one highways matter I recommended that the Council review the wording of its Penalty Charge Notice as this suggested the complainant could only make representations on the statutory appeal grounds. As my Special Report makes clear, the Council must consider other mitigating circumstances as well. I am aware that the Government will shortly be consulting on matters following the Traffic Management Act 2004, and this may lead to changes. Nevertheless, I should be grateful if you could update me on progress here.
Many of the housing complaints that were outside my jurisdiction were from leaseholders. The Council produces a helpful guide for leaseholders but I am unclear when this was last reviewed. I note that the section on how to complain makes reference to the Council’s own complaints procedure, but does not refer to other avenues that might be open to a complainant such as legal action or an approach to the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal. You may wish to consider including such information in a future revision of the booklet and also making clear that while a complaint could also be made to my office I cannot normally investigate a matter where the complainant had an alternative means of resolving the issue.
52 complaints were referred back to your Council because it had not been given a reasonable opportunity to deal with them before they came to me. This is fewer than the 82 in 2004/05 and is slightly lower than the national average. Seven complaints were resubmitted to me for consideration because the complainant was dissatisfied with the response. In two of these cases I subsequently reached local settlements. One was still under investigation at the year end.
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Your council’s complaints procedure and handling of complaints
Last year I said that decision letters at the third stage of the complaints procedure could be lengthy and repetitious and that I understood consideration was being given to reviewing the style of these letters. I know the Council has been experimenting with different approaches and would welcome further information on this as, I continue to feel that these could be clearer and would benefit from more analysis. I remain very willing to offer further advice and help in this regard.
As you know, complainants do not need to complete all three stages of the Council’s procedure before complaining to me. Sometimes there might be benefits in omitting stages of the procedure. I would encourage flexibility where this would produce a speedier outcome for the complainant, without diluting the thoroughness of the investigation.
Training in complaint handling
Our training in complaint handling is proving very popular with authorities and we continue to receive very positive feedback from participants. Over the last year we have delivered more than 100 courses from the range of three courses that we now offer as part of our role in promoting good administrative practice.
Effective Complaint Handling was the first course we developed, aimed at staff who deal with complaints as a significant part of their job. Since then we have introduced courses in complaint handling for front line staff and in handling social services complaints.
All courses are presented by an experienced investigator so participants benefit from their knowledge and expertise of complaint handling.
I have enclosed some information on the range of courses available together with contact details for enquiries and bookings.
Liaison with LGO
I ask councils to respond to my enquiries within 28 calendar days. The Council’s average time was 31.8 days, a slight increase on last year’s figure of 29.1 days. Housing and planning took longer to respond than other service areas (37.2 and 36.8 days). If response times could be improved here, I am sure that my target could be met.
We continue to appreciate the good contact between our offices by telephone and email and I recognise the speed with which staff of the Central Complaints Unit have been able to respond to inquiries about matters which may not warrant a formal investigation. I know that my Assistant Ombudsman found his meeting with the Head of the Central Complaints Unit last June very helpful.
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Conclusions/general observations
I welcome this opportunity to give you my reflections about the complaints my office has dealt with over the past year. I hope that you find the information and assessment provided useful when seeking improvements to your Council’s services. I would again very much welcome any comments you may have on the form and content of the letter.
I would again be happy to consider requests for myself or a senior colleague to visit the Council to present and discuss the letter with councillors or staff. We will do our best to meet the requests within the limits of the resources available to us.
I am also arranging for a copy of this letter and its attachments to be sent to you electronically so that you can distribute it easily within the council and post it on your website should you decide to do this.
Yours sincerely
Tony Redmond