Issue - meetings

Members were provided with a summary of complaints made against the Council and noted a report which outlined the performance of the Council in dealing with complaints, at stage one by the service areas, at stage two by the Complaints and Compliments Officer and at stage three when complaints are referred to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman or the Housing Ombudsman.

It was stated that the report should be used for positive outcomes with performance indicators used to ensure that recommendations had been dispensed and lessons learned from complaints received by the Council. It was suggested that the number of complaints had risen due to ‘expressions of dissatisfaction’ being treated as complaints in line with advice given by the Housing Ombudsman, however, it was expected that complaints numbers would decrease due to interventions recently introduced.

It was requested that the Overview and Scrutiny Committee consider Anti-Social Behaviour policies across the Council as there were no protocols in place with other agencies.