Contact: Paul Carey-Kent, ext 7525

1. Background

1.1 The County Council's complaints policy requires departments to report the appropriate policy review committee on their monitoring of complaints and compliments. This report covers the period 2003/04 for County Treasurers.

1.2 These results need to be seen in the context of the department's overall strategy to ensure good communication and feedback from customers. Accordingly these themes are picked up.

2. Feedback context

2.1 The department uses both proactive and reactive means of obtaining feedback from both customers and staff. The main ones are:

· A customer Quality Review which takes place about every 2 to 3 years, and which takes the form of visiting some 120 customers to carry out a structured interview designed to find out not just `how we are doing' but also what ideas they have for improvement. The last of these took place in 2001/02. The next will take place this autumn.

· A parallel process, called `Listening to You' is also undertaken periodically to find out in a similar structured way views of all staff through interviews with managers.

· Some types of work lend themselves to specific customer feedback on particular pieces of work - audit, consultancy and provision of training. Those results then feed into assessment of performance in consultancy for example. In audit, for example very poor marks are treated as a complaint (23 out of some 500 audits carried out in 2003/04 down from 48 in 2002/03) and at the other end of the scale top marks in all categories were given by 82 customers which is treated as a compliment.

· Regular surveys are carried out of external customer groups not covered by the Quality Review process. These include surveys of to pensioners on the level of service, literature and letters provided, and to students receiving support. A new survey was introduced in 2003/04 to ask recipients of the Financial Assessments and Benefits Service how helpful they found our visits to be, and it was encouraging that on all questions over 97% of those responding rated the service at four or five out of five.

· The department also holds an open day every two years (the last one was in May 2003) at which customers are invited to attend talks, systems demonstrations, tours of sections to see how they work and stands set up to answer their questions. This is another helpful way of obtaining customer views as well as improving communications.

· Information from these mechanisms feeds through the department's Quality Review Management Team (QRMT), made up of staff from different levels across the department, who consider what can be done to improve customer service. They also receive quarterly reports on compliments and complaints, which make up the more reactive side of dealing with customer feedback.

2.2 Complaints are recognised as valuable information that helps the department to identify opportunities for improvement. Each complaint is investigated by the relevant service manager and an appropriate response made to the customer. Where a problem is revealed, consideration is given not just to rectifying action but also to system change as appropriate in order to prevent a recurrence.

3. Complaints and compliments monitoring 2003/04

3.1 2002/03 had been a particularly challenging year in terms of customer service due to the systems changes occurring. It has therefore been pleasing to note that complaints fell compared with 2001/02 (173 in 2002/03 compared with 205 in 2001/02). There was a further fall to 154 in 2003/04. That reflects the reduced number of poor scores for audits carried out and reduced complaints relating to the Council's new systems as their central application bedded down more fully (roll-out across the Council as a whole is occurring mostly in 2004/05, and may affect the trends in this year). There was, however, a new national computer system for student support which was piloted in Hampshire. This was linked to new national procedures and standard forms. As might be expected of a pilot, there were some problems associated and of the 62 complaints received 40 were specifically complaining about the new system rather than how it was administered. That system has been rolled out nationally with some amendments in the current year but the signs to date are that there are still issues which will lead to complaints.

3.2 Compliments are also recorded, although it is in their nature that as they do not require corrective action, they receive less attention and are less likely to be captured formally. There were 11 written compliments recorded in 2003/04 along with the 103 internal audits given top marks.

3.3 One complaint was referred to the ombudsman during the year 2003/04. This was from a student who claimed that the Student Support Unit had lost his passport. The Ombudsman concluded that there was no evidence that he had sent the passport to the Council.

3.4 None of the complaints reported were considered to have a racial element to them.

3 Conclusions

3.2 Good systems are in place to record and investigate customer complaints. The opportunity is taken to learn from the complaints and where appropriate improvement actions are taken.

Recommendation

That this report is noted. That the PRC continues to receive an annual report on compliments and complaints within the County Treasurer's department.

Section 100 D - Local Government Act 1972 - background papers

The following documents disclose facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and has been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.

NB the list excludes:

Published works.

Documents which disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the Act.

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