Contact: Trevor Stabb HPSN 202 3856

1: Background

1.1 The County Council's Complaints Policy requires departments to report to the appropriate Policy Review committee on their monitoring and response to complaints and compliments.

1.2 This report details compliments recorded and complaints investigated within all Human Resource Operational units and covers the period 1 April 2004 to 31 March 2005.4.

1.3 The Human Resources Department provides a diverse range of services, through it's service centres, to all County Council Departments.

1.4 Contact with the general public is primarily related to recruitment, which is carried out through the Resourcing Unit in Athelstan House

1 Recording, investigating and monitoring complaints/feedback

1.1 Human Resources operate a process, as part of its continuous improvement programme, for resolving issues arising with any part of its service delivery or conduct of its staff.

1.2 Each unit records complaints and compliments, where these are received in writing.

1.3 A new web based feed back process for both complaints and compliments is being launched in the HR website in July - the new Recruitment website has its own feedback process.

1.4 The information is centrally collated, by the HR Business Development and Support Unit.

1.5 Individual centre managers are responsible for conducting investigations into complaints, making the appropriate response to the complainant, within the agreed timescale, and for ensuring corrective actions arising are effective.

Where necessary, independent investigation is conducted by the head of HR Business Development and Support.

1.6 Complaints are reviewed and discussed at departmental management team meetings

1.7 All units maintain frequent contact with their Customer departments, both by face to face meetings and the use of customer survey questionnaires, to review the quality of work carried out and the attitude / behaviour of the staff.

1.8 Education Personnel Services additionally use a feedback form with their main customers, Hampshire Schools.

3. Compliments.

3.1 Compliments, relating to both overall service and to the actions of individual staff have been received across the entire department.

3.2 Whilst a lot of these have been received through formal customer feedback, a significant number of compliments have been received by unit managers and the individual member of staff by virtue of a letter, e-mail or in conversation, regarding a specific activity or person.

3.3 During a year of constant and significant change HR have received a large number of formal compliments together with many informal, verbal , ones.

3.4 Our records detail over 100 individual items of thanks and compliment.

3.5 These cover all units of HR and relate to the level of service provided to our customers - the compliments coming from customers across the councils departments.

3.6 Typical compliments related to both general service provision being good / excellent and individuals who had gone that "extra mile" to provide exceptional contribution and professionalism in achieving or exceeding meeting the customers expectations.

3.7 Compliments have been made by a wide range of people: - Head Teachers, Admin Staff, Managers, other Employees and External people.

4. Complaints

4.1 Complaints relating to the service from Human Resources Department can arise both "Internally" and from the public where we have direct contact.

Frequently, these "Complaints" represent adverse, but constructive, comments which are welcome as they help to maintain Continuous Improvement in the department.

Other comments, about service delivery, which are verbally received are not recorded, but do form part of the Continuous Improvement culture within HR.

4.2 Complaints received were primarily process related and when compared to the number of HR related transaction taking place, account for a very small percentage of them.

4.3 Records show that we received 8 "formal" complaints and a similar number of "adverse" comments from internal customers.

4.4 After investigation and evaluation of the process, corrective actions have been implemented to prevent re-occurrence or where appropriate, additional staff training given.

4.5 The significant changes to business processes and the learning curve of the staff to familiarise themselves with them did resulted in a number of specific complaints about some areas of service delivery, especially in Resourcing.

4.6 These have been addressed both by restoring confidence by the customer in HR and by amending the processes to ensure the actions taken prevent the problem occurring again.

4.7 Three "external complaints" were recorded by the Resourcing Centre.

1: The location and salary offered for a role was different from the advert.

The situation was explained to the person (in writing) who accepted the explanation.

2: Complaint made relating to equal opportunities during a selection process. At this point in time an acknowledgement letter has been sent to the complainant and the matter is under investigation.

3: Complaint made relating to equal opportunities in short listing candidates. Complaint was investigated and no breach of legislation or HCC procedure could be found. Letter sent to complainant explaining the situation, and there has been no further contact from the person.

4.4 None of the complaints resulted in escalation beyond stage 2 of the Corporate Complaints process and no complaint related to race issues.

5. Conclusion

5.1 The department is further developing systems agree internal customer expectations (Service Level Agreements) and to record and investigate customer complaints and to register compliments (Customer feedback systems)

These are being reviewed as part of the departmental restructuring to ensure the ease of use and effectiveness of these processes.

Our policy is to use any complaint as the opportunity to learn and to improve our processes.

Compliment also are important in learning as if we know what we have done well and how we did it, the excellent service can be repeated in future.

5.2 Complaints have been dealt with in accordance with our performance targets of an acknowledgement within 5 working days and a full reply within 20.

6. Recommendations

6.1 This report is noted.

6.2 The complaints handling process within Human Resources is reviewed and amended as necessary to meet the changing departmental structure and its requirements.

6.3 That the PRC continues to receive an annual report on compliments and complaints within Human Resources.