Number of Complaints Received by Department (By Quarter

Agenda item No.

DERBYSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL

CABINET

22nd April 2008

Report of the Chief Executive

CORPORATE COMPLAINTS OVERVIEW 2006/07

(Strategic Policy & Budget)

Purpose of the Report

To inform Cabinet of the complaints received during the financial year 2006/07 and to report on the complaints received between April and September 2007.

Information and Analysis

Background

The Council’s CPA Action Plan 2002 states that the Council should:

• Develop a consistent approach to learning from comments, compliments and complaints to support corporate and service planning;
• Monitor and evaluate complaints procedures.

The council’s complaints procedure was approved in November 2004 and, following a pilot monitoring period, the first full year of monitoring took place between 1 April 2005 and 31 March 2006. A Cabinet report in February 2007 detailed the findings of the 2005/06 complaints monitoring.

The stages of the Corporate Complaints procedure are:

• Stage 1 - complaints dealt with by the staff in the department concerned;
• Stage 2–referral to the Departmental Complaints Officer or appropriate manager if a complainant is dissatisfied at Stage 1 their complaint;
• Stage 3– appeal to a panel of three Elected Members if a complainant is dissatisfied with a Stage 2 decision;
• Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) - a complainant should usually give the county council an opportunity to deal with a complaint in the first instance, normally through the three stages of the council’s complaints procedure as outlined above.

Overview

During the period 1 April 2006 to31 March 2007the council dealt with 829 complaints under the council’s complaints procedure. As in 2005/06 the public facing services Social Care and Environmental Services received the majority of complaints with around 83% of total complaints. Details of the complaints received during 2006/07 are included in Appendix A.

Theoutcomes of complaints during the 2006/07, for all three stages of the complaints procedure, were as follows:

• 23% were upheld;
• 47% were not upheld;
• 26% were partially upheld;
• 3% had another outcome.

One complaint was dealt with under the complaints procedure that related to a racial incident. This was received by Cultural & Community Services. In the previous year no complaints related to a racial incident had been recorded.

Key analysis of Stage 1 monitoring

Most complaints are dealt with under Stage 1 of the procedure by the relevant person in the department concerned. The Council aims to deal with Stage 1 complaints in 10 working days or a period agreed with the complainant in cases requiring a more complex investigation. Analysis shows that:

• 734 Stage 1 complaints were received during 2006/07, this represented 89% of all complaints compared to 92% in the previous year;

• 94% of Stage 1 complaints were dealt with in the 10 day period or a period agreed with the complainant, compared to 90% in 2005/06;

• The majority of complainants at Stage 1 were female with almost 13% more female complainants than male;
• For those complainants where the age is specified most are either under 20 or over 60.

A lack of demographic monitoring data makes any more in depth analysis difficult. Improvements in the collection and analysis of demographic information would enable more detailed monitoring against equalities groups to be made. The collection of demographic information is addressed in the issues and next steps section of this report.

Key analysis of Stage 2 monitoring

If a complainant is dissatisfied at Stage 1, their complaint is referred to the Departmental Complaints Officer or appropriate manager. 67 complaints moved to this Stage of the procedure in 2006/07 representing around 8% of total complaints. In the previous year, 63 complaints, (6%), of all complaints proceeded to Stage 2.

The council aims to acknowledge all Stage 2 complaints within five working days and provide a response within 20 working days. Where it is not possible to respond within the 20 day timescale, an extension is given within 20 working days and a full response given within three months. Analysis of complaints data shows that:

• 55 (95%) of completed Stage 2 complaints were acknowledged within 5 working days;
• 43 (77%) of completed Stage 2 complaints were responded to in full within 20 working days;
• An extension was agreed in 20 working days for 13 (87%) of the complainants who had not received a full response within 20 days;
• Of the Stage 2 complainants who had not received a full response in 20 days, four (80%)were responded to within 3 months;
• 100% of complainants received a response within an agreed time;
• 45% of Stage 2 complainants were female compared to 57% at Stage 1.

Key analysis of Stage 3 monitoring

If a complainant is dissatisfied with a Stage 2 decision he or she may appeal to a panel of Elected Members (three Elected Members drawn from the Regulatory – Licensing and Appeals Committee). The decision of the Appeals Panel should be made known in writing within five working days of the hearing. This is the final stage of the council’s formal complaints procedure.

Four complaints progressed onto Stage 3 of the procedure, three of which related to Social Care and one to Cultural & Community Services. This figure is lower than 2005/06 when seven complaints progressed to Stage 3.

Two of the Stage 3 complaints were completed within the yearly monitoring period and informed of the Appeal Panel’s decision in writing within five working days. The remaining two complaints were not completed within the financial year 2006/07.

Local Government Ombudsman (LGO)

A complainant should usually give the county council an opportunity to deal with a complaint in the first instance, normally through the council’s complaints procedure as outlined above. If the complainant is not satisfied with the action the council takes, they can make a complaint to the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO). Complainants can take their compliant directly to the LGO, though the LGO may classify a complaint as premature and refer it back to the county council. The LGO issues an Annual Letter for each authoritysetting out key reflections on the complaints dealt with over the year, the key issues from the Annual Letter 2006/07 are as follows:

• The LGO received 48 complaints about the council in 2006/07, two more than the previous year and ten more than 2004/05;
• The biggest category of complainant was transport and highways (16 complaints) followed by education (12);
• The LGO received 32 complaints that were not classified as premature, five more than in 2005/06 but two less than in 2004/05;
• The LGO did not issue any reports finding maladministration and injustice in 2006/07;
• Nine complaints led to local settlements compared to four in 2005/06. 28% of all decisions made in 2006/07 led to local settlements an increase from 17% in 2005/06. This compares to the national average of 28% for 2006/07;
• Local settlements resulted in payments totalling £2,050;
• The local settlements also led to repairs to streetlighting, work to improve record keeping, and improved information available to professionals visiting people receiving home care visits;
• The council averaged 22 days to respond to 18 initial enquiries, well within the target of 28 days and a reduction on the average of 29 days in 2005/06;
• The LGO states that the council’s complaints procedure is working well for local people and does not consider that there are any issues of wider concern emerging from these complaints.

Complaints received between April and September 2007

A total of 455 complaints have been received by the county council in the first six months of 2007/08 compared to 829 in the previous year. The 2006/07 figure cannot be broken down to six month periods and it is possible that the 2007/08 figure does not represent a real increase in the number of complaints received but is simply a result of seasonal variation in complaints. Details of the complaints received in the first six months of 2007/08 are included in Appendix B.

• 406 (89%) Stage 1 complaints were received during the first six months of 2007/08, the same percentage as in the previous year;
• 39 (9%) complaints progressed to Stage 2;
• No Stage 3 complaints were received between April 07 and September 07;
• Ten complaints (1%) were received by the LGO in the first six months of 2007/08, this percentage is lower than the 3% recorded in 2006/07.

Details of complaints will continue to be collected on a quarterly basis for the remaining six months of 2007/08 and in future years. A further report will be brought to Cabinet looking at complaints received during the full year 2007/08 in Autumn 2008.

Issues and next steps

Figures in this report are from the second full years monitoring and from the first six months of 2007/08. Where possible figures have been compared to those of the previous year to enable performance in complaints handling to be monitored. This process will continue in future years. Key issues arising from the monitoring include:

• A 3% reduction from 2005/06 to 2006/07 in the number of Stage 1 complaints responded to outside of the agreed timescale;
• A significant improvement in the number of Stage 2 complaints acknowledged within five working days, this increased from 75% in 2005/06 to 95% in 2006/07.

Further action is required to continue to improve on the complaints monitoring process. The current process monitors complaints received and completed within a financial year. Those complaints received in one financial year but completed in a subsequent year are not currently included in complaints reporting. Consideration needs to be given to how these complaints can be included in future monitoring. Other actions for improving complaints monitoring include:

• Building on the lessons learnt in 2006/07 to improve response times;
• The identification of reasons for complainants not receiving a response within the agreed timescales;
• The identification of improvements for the timescales of Stage 3 hearings;

• Improving the collection and analysis of demographic information to enable more detailed monitoring against equalities group;
• Monitoring complainants satisfaction with the complaints procedure.

The Corporate Complaints Group is currently identifying actions to address the issues set out above along with areas where monitoring has highlighted trends for service improvement within departments. The action plan and regular progress reports will be presented to Cabinet and the outcomes will be published in next years Annual Report.

The way forward

The Corporate Complaints Group meeting held on 6th March 2008 discussed how the current complaints monitoring process could be improved to include details of all complaints received by the county council. It was proposed that additional information should also be collected on trends within departments and that changes in procedures which resulted from complaints received should be identified and included in future reports. The meeting also agreed to pilot a questionnaire to be sent to previous complainants to monitor satisfaction with the county council complaints procedure.

Equality Considerations

Where possible monitoring is carried out against age, gender, ethnicity and disability, however, in the majority of cases these are not stated. There are no key issues arising from a broad analysis of available information.

Other Considerations

In preparing this report the relevance of the following factors has been considered: - personnel, prevention of crime and disorder, financial, environmental, health, legal and human rights and property considerations.

Key Decision - No

Background Papers

Cabinet Paper 20 February 2007 – Corporate Complaints Overview 2005/06.

Full details of Departmental monitoring are held in the Policy & Research Team, Chief Executive’s Office.

Officer’s Recommendation

1. That Cabinet notes the key issues relating to the complaints procedure and monitoring of complaints detailed in this report.

2. That a report to Cabinet on progress and developments be presented in Autumn 2008 following the end of the 2007/08 monitoring period.

Nick Hodgson

Chief Executive

Appendix A

Table 1.Complaints Received April 2006 – March 2007

2006/07 Complaints
Chief Executives / Corporate Resources / Cultural & Community Services / Education / Environmental Services / Social Care / Total 2006/07 / Total 2005/06
Stage 1 / Completed / 4 / 5 / 104 / 15 / 57 / 491 / 676 / 776
Not Completed / 0 / 0 / 1 / 0 / 46 / 11 / 58 / 171
Racial Incident / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0
All Stage 1 / Number / 4 / 5 / 105 / 15 / 103 / 502 / 734 / 947
% / 100% / 100% / 91% / 75% / 66% / 95% / 89% / 92%
Stage 2 / Completed / 0 / 0 / 8 / 0 / 22 / 6 / 36 / 39
Not Completed / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 28 / 2 / 30 / 24
Racial Incident / 0 / 0 / 1 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 1 / 0
All Stage 2 / Number / 0 / 0 / 9 / 0 / 50 / 8 / 67 / 63
% / 0% / 0% / 8% / 0% / 32% / 2% / 8% / 6%
Stage 3 / Completed / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 2 / 2 / 7
Not Completed / 0 / 0 / 1 / 0 / 0 / 1 / 2 / 0
Racial Incident / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0
All Stage 3 / Number / 0 / 0 / 1 / 0 / 0 / 3 / 4 / 7
% / 0% / 0% / 1% / 0% / 0% / 1% / 0% / 1%
Ombudsman / Completed / 0 / 0 / 0 / 4 / 2 / 14 / 20 / 7
Not Completed / 0 / 0 / 0 / 1 / 2 / 1 / 4 / 8
Racial Incident / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0
All Ombudsman / Number / 0 / 0 / 0 / 5 / 4 / 15 / 24 / 15
% / 0% / 0% / 0% / 25% / 3% / 3% / 3% / 1%
Total / Completed / 4 / 5 / 112 / 19 / 81 / 513 / 734 / 829
Not Completed / 0 / 0 / 2 / 1 / 76 / 15 / 94 / 203
Racial Incident / 0 / 0 / 1 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 1 / 0
All Complaints / Number / 4 / 5 / 115 / 20 / 157 / 528 / 829 / 1032
% / 100% / 100% / 100% / 100% / 100% / 100% / 100% / 100%

Table 2.Completed Stage 1 Complaints April 2006 – March 2007

Reply in 10 days / Reply in agreed time / Reply other / Total
Stage 1 / 2006/07 / Number / 532 / 143 / 40 / 715
% / 74% / 20% / 6% / 100%
2005/06 / Number / 375 / 341 / 86 / 802
% / 47% / 43% / 11% / 100%

Table 3. Completed Stage 2 Complaints April 2006 – March 2007

Acknowledged within 5 days / Full response in 20 days
Stage 2 / 2006/07 / Yes / Number / 55 / 43
% / 95% / 77%
No / Number / 3 / 13
% / 5% / 23%
2005/06 / Yes / % / 75% / 54%

Table 4. Completed Complaints April 2006 – March 2007 –

Stage 2 not responded to within 20 days

Extension agreed in 20 days / Full response in agreed time / Full response in 3 months
Stage 2 / 2006/07 / Yes / Number / 13 / 13 / 4
% / 87% / 100% / 80%
No / Number / 2 / 0 / 1
% / 13% / 0% / 20%
2005/06 / Yes / % / 91% / 100% / 98%

Table 5. Completed Stage 3 Complaints April 2006 – March 2007

Hearing within 20 days of request / Written decision within 5 days of hearing
Stage 3 / 2006/07 / Yes / Number / 1 / 2
% / 50% / 100%
No / Number / 1 / 0
% / 50% / 0%
2005/06 / Yes / Number / 2 / 7
% / 40% / 100%
No / Number / 3 / 0
% / 60% / 0%

Table 6.Completed ComplaintsOutcomes April 2006 – March 2007

Upheld / Partially Upheld / Not upheld / Other / Total
No. / % / No. / % / No. / % / No. / % / No. / %
2006/7 / Stage 1 / 172 / 24% / 184 / 26% / 337 / 47% / 22 / 3% / 715 / 100%
Stage 2 / 7 / 12% / 20 / 34% / 29 / 49% / 3 / 5% / 59 / 100%
Stage 3 / 0 / 0% / 0 / 0% / 2 / 100% / 0 / 0% / 2 / 100%
Total / 179 / 23% / 204 / 26% / 368 / 47% / 25 / 3% / 776 / 100%
2005/6 / Stage 1 / 183 / 23% / 186 / 23% / 344 / 43% / 93 / 12% / 806 / 100%
Stage 2 / 14 / 26% / 12 / 22% / 22 / 41% / 6 / 11% / 54 / 100%
Stage 3 / 2 / 29% / 1 / 14% / 3 / 43% / 1 / 14% / 7 / 100%
Total / 199 / 23% / 199 / 23% / 369 / 43% / 100 / 12% / 867 / 100%

Appendix B

Table 7.Complaints Received April 07 – September 07

Chief Executives / Corporate Resources / Cultural & Community Services / Children & Younger Adults / Environmental Services / Older Adults & Vulnerable People / Total
Stage 1 / Completed / 4 / 1 / 109 / 85 / 27 / 158 / 384
Not Completed / 0 / 0 / 4 / 1 / 17 / 0 / 22
Racial Incident / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0
All Stage 1 / Number / 4 / 1 / 113 / 86 / 44 / 158 / 406
% / 100% / 0% / 98% / 96% / 53% / 98% / 89%
Stage 2 / Completed / 0 / 0 / 2 / 2 / 8 / 2 / 14
Not Completed / 0 / 0 / 0 / 2 / 21 / 1 / 24
Racial Incident / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 1 / 0 / 1
All Stage 2 / Number / 0 / 0 / 2 / 4 / 30 / 3 / 39
% / 0% / 0% / 2% / 4% / 36% / 2% / 9%
Stage 3 / Completed / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0
Not Completed / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0
Racial Incident / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0
All Stage 3 / Number / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0
% / 0% / 0% / 0% / 0% / 0% / 0% / 0%
Ombudsman / Completed / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 2 / 0 / 2
Not Completed / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 7 / 1 / 8
Racial Incident / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0
All Ombudsman / Number / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 9 / 1 / 10
% / 0% / 0% / 0% / 0% / 11% / 1% / 2%
Total / Completed / 4 / 1 / 111 / 87 / 37 / 160 / 400
Not Completed / 0 / 0 / 4 / 3 / 45 / 2 / 54
Racial Incident / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 1 / 0 / 1
All Complaints / Number / 4 / 1 / 115 / 90 / 83 / 162 / 455
% / 100% / 100% / 100% / 100% / 100% / 100% / 100%

Table 8.Completed Stage 1 Complaints April 07 – September 07

Reply in 10 days / Reply in agreed time / Reply other / Total
Stage 1 / Number / 320 / 64 / 26 / 410
% / 78% / 16% / 6% / 100%

Table 9. Completed Stage 2 Complaints April 07 – September 07

Acknowledged within 5 days / Full response in 20 days
Stage 2 / Yes / Number / 31 / 23
% / 91% / 68%
No / Number / 3 / 11
% / 9% / 32%

Table 10. Completed Complaints April 07 – September 07 –

Stage 2 not responded to within 20 days

Extension agreed in 20 days / Full response in agreed time / Full response in 3 months
Stage 2 / Yes / Number / 11 / 9 / 5
% / 92% / 90% / 71%
No / Number / 1 / 1 / 2
% / 8% / 10% / 29%

Table 11. Completed Stage 3 Complaints April 07 – September 07

Hearing within 20 days of request / Written decision within 5 days of hearing
Stage 3 / Yes / Number / 0 / 0
%
No / Number / 0 / 0
%

Table 12.Completed ComplaintsOutcomes April 07 – September 07

Upheld / Partially Upheld / Not upheld / Other / Total
No. / % / No. / % / No. / % / No. / % / No. / %
Stage 1 / 90 / 22% / 67 / 16% / 228 / 55% / 26 / 6% / 411 / 100%
Stage 2 / 3 / 8% / 10 / 26% / 19 / 50% / 6 / 16% / 38 / 100%
Stage 3 / 0 / 0% / 0 / 0% / 0 / 0% / 0 / 0% / 0 / 0%
Total / 93 / 21% / 77 / 17% / 247 / 55% / 32 / 7% / 449 / 100%