Contact: Sue Pappadakis, 01962 846572; [email protected]

1 Summary

1.1 This report summarises complaints made by parents, members of the public or schools (headteachers or governors) about services delivered by the Education Department during the financial year 2004/05. It also summarises those compliments that have been logged by individual services. This is the third year the department has reported on its complaints and compliments.

1.2 The report does not include the number of contacts made by parents who wish to complain about a matter which is the responsibility of a school. There is a statutory requirement for individual schools to have their own complaints procedure and to monitor their own complaints. Where parents contact us directly they are given information on how to access the school complaints procedure.

1.3 This paper reflects how the Department responds to the corporate complaints procedure, Comments, suggestions and complaints, and monitors and reviews all complaints and compliments to ensure its services are effective. This supports Aim 5 of the Corporate Strategy (Ensuring our services are inclusive and continuously improving to meet the changing needs of the whole community). This in turn supports the change management process as the Education department begins to consider its work under the five main aims of the Children Act: Be Healthy; Stay Safe; Enjoy and Achieve; Make a Positive Contribution, Achieve Economic Well-being.

2 Background

2.1 The Education Department, as with all Hampshire County Council departments, logs and reports annually to the Chief Executive on complaints and compliments received over the financial year. All services keep a log of the number and relevant information on the reasons for any complaints, the actions taken and resulting improvements in services. A log is also kept on whether a complaint was dealt with within the County Council's timescales and equalities information is recorded where possible.

2.2 Education services also keep a record of compliments either written or intentionally made by phone. Generally speaking the log of compliments does not record the wide ranging `thank yous' received by staff directly or through evaluation sheets.

2.3 The Race Relations (Amendment) Act places a positive duty on local authorities to promote good race relations and other equal opportunities. The Best Value Performance Indicators (174/175) require local authorities to report on the numbers of complaints relating to racial incidents and to include an audit trail describing the resulting action and outcomes. Similar requirements will relate to the Disability Discrimination Act in the near future.

2.4 Heads of services use records of both complaints and compliments to review the effectiveness of their services. Other methods may include evaluation sheets and surveys.

3 Education Department Complaints 2004/2005

3.1 142 complaints were logged for this financial year: 80 were from parents or members of the public and 62 from schools. Whilst this is an increase on last year when there were 108 complaints: 37 from parents or the public and 71 from schools, this increase can be attributed to two main issues, one in the music service and the other in Early Education and Childcare (see Section 4.2).

3.2 The vast majority of complaints were dealt with to the customer's satisfaction at Stage 1 of the corporate complaints procedure. Only three progressed to Stage 2, the County Education Officer.

3.3 Officers responded to the majority of complaints within the timescale of 20 working days. A small number of complaints were more complex and took much longer. In these circumstances the complainant is kept informed of timescales.

3.4 Equalities information remains limited as complaints are, in the main, received and resolved at the first, less formal stage of the complaints process. Information on equalities is not recorded for complaints from schools unless there is an obvious relevance to the member of staff making the complaint.

3.5 Eight complaints were considered by the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) compared with six in 2003/04. However, two of these were recorded as `no maladministration', two were `outside the ombudsman's jurisdiction', one was referred back to the local authority as it was taken prematurely to the LGO and the LGO decided not to pursue another. Two decisions are yet to be made.

4 Service complaints

4.1 The following table shows the number of complaints received by each service for the financial year 2004/05 and includes a comparison with the previous three years. Compliments are also included in brackets. To help provide context, an indication of the numbers of potential customers is also given.

Approximate customer base for 2004/05		2004/ 05	2003/ 04	2002/03	2001/02
Standards and Improvement Branch		(Compliments in brackets)
Hampshire Inspection and Advisory Service (HIAS)	540 schools plus external users of the subscription services and ad hoc users	2 (1)	1	2	0
Professional Development and Training	19,000 delegates	3	-	-	-
Governor Services	7769 current governorships (Vacancies 1132)	5 (86)	26 (57)	8	24
Children and Families Branch
Special Educational Needs (SEN) Services	540 schools 25,000 pupils with SEN, 471 statutory assessments during 2004 and total of 4770 statements in Jan 05	5 (25)	3 (21)	4	5
Parent Partnership Service	All pupils with SEN (25,000), 1160 actual contacts with parents in 2004/05	0
Educational Psychology Service (HEPS)	540 schools plus 1000 pre-school providers; 10,000 consultations annually and about 15,900 open files	6 (10)	0	4	0
Education Welfare Service (EWS)	540 Schools and 3500 families	16 (4)	17	5	27
Family Group Conference (FGC) and counselling	77 families (referred to the Education Department's FGC for education reasons) 416 pupils received counselling 18 schools involved	0 (31)	0 (1)	0 (1)	1 (22)
Juvenile Employment Service	17000 children; 2239 employers	0 (3)
Education Other Than at School (EOTAS)	540 schools. 338 permanently excluded children; 201 emotionally vulnerable and unwell children; 82 children with behavioural, emotional and social difficulties. 636 referrals to the Behaviour Support Teams. 450 children "educated at home"	8 (2)	9	1	0
Education for Children in Care Service	1000 looked after children Designated teacher in every school 9 children's homes 500-600 foster carers	0	0	0	0
Early Education and Childcare	3,460 day care providers, including 660 early education providers in the voluntary and private sector, 15 early years centres, including 3 maintained nursery schools.	13	4	0	1
Youth Service	26,901 young people (13-19) used the service in 2004/05:	9 (1)	7	7	15
School and Community Branch
Admissions	Admission arrangements for 432 mainstream community and voluntary controlled schools and monitoring 76 foundation and voluntary aided schools. Approx 35,000 parents receive offer letters annually by admissions team.	6	5	0	1
Music Service	14,5000 pupils; 70 regular and county ensembles with 2,700 pupils weekly (out of school); 300 public performances annually (Extended curriculum contact 2003-2004: 445 schools; 2,100 teacher contacts; 18,300 pupil contacts)	30 (18)	2 (25)	9 (27)	9
Adult and Community Learning	540 schools; 120 Adult Learning Providers (27,000 learners); 70 sports organisations; 230 `talented sports' pupils	2 (3)	1	3	0
Resources and Planning Branch
Outdoor Education	700+ schools ( 3 LEA's) /13 colleges/3 Youth Services (13 districts ) numerous voluntary organisations	0	0	0	0
Information and Research	540 schools	0 (1)	0	0	0
Transport	15,000 pupils 30,000 parents
Education Financial Services	Potentially 540 schools plus other Education non-school units	1 (47)	0	0	0
ICT	Headteachers, Governors, Teachers, Support staff and Administrative staff in 530 schools	36 (44)	33	46 (1)	76 (9)
	Totals	142 (274)	108 (171)	89 (29)	159 (31)

4.2 The Early Education and Childcare Service has recorded an increased number of complaints this year and this has been due to a delay in the implementation of the flexibilities required within the Code of Practice for 2004/05. The consultation and revised Code of Practice were delayed due to the General Election and as a result the Unit decided to bring forward its implementation from the planned date in September 2005 to April 2005 to address these issues. Although this late notification to pre-school settings resulted in a number of complaints. Discussions are already in progress to improve the process and ensure that any future changes are introduced within a reasonable timescale.

The Music Service received a number of complaints about the recruiting process for a new Director for the Hampshire County Youth Orchestra. Complainants felt that the requirements were limiting and would affect future service quality. The requirements were comprehensively reviewed and consulted on by a wide range of stakeholder following an unsuccessful first appointment and prior to re-advertising.

Governor Services has recorded a reduced number of complaints this year after seeking advice and reviewing its criteria for logging complaints.

Whilst the Youth Service reported no significant increases in complaints, a high percentage were related specifically to health and safety issues as a result of building management. The matter was resolved through staff reorganisation and investigations continue so that the service learns from this series of complaints to ensure high standards are maintained.

Numbers of complaints to the Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) Service remained on a par with last year despite a particularly difficult year in terms of the amount of change required in schools' information management systems (SIMS). Although there appear to be a high number of complaints compared to other services this should be seen in context of the number of service users and the technical nature of the service offered. The service also receives a large number of compliments.

The Admissions Team had a challenging year with the introduction of new secondary transfer procedures, new legislation and a new electronic data management system to handle 14,700 allocations. Whilst only three complaints were received which resulted from an incorrect allocation, the new procedures were continually reviewed and revised throughout the process. The overwhelming number of calls resulting from this new process caused staff resourcing difficulties and resulted in one complaint about a call not being responded to. As a result of these pressures, a successful bid was made for an increase in staffing.

4.3 A breakdown by reasons for complaints in 2004/05 about a service show:
2004/05 Compared with 2003/04
Service quality 63% 51%
Delay in delivery/lack of service 6 23%
Staff action/attitude 5 6%
Payment issues 4 5%
Disagree policy/procedures decision 4 6%
Communication 2 4%
Health and safety 5 3%
Ethnicity 1 2%
Miscellaneous 10

4.4 Whilst about 43% (50%) of these complaints were resolved with a clarification or explanation, other resulting action included:

2004/05 Compared with 2003/04
Reviewed service staff practices: 8 22%
Administrative errors rectified : 7 14%
Price reduction/reimbursement/compensation: 4 7%
Revised guidance: 32 3%
Ongoing at the point of reporting: 6 4%

5 Complaints about racial issues

5.1 There was one complaint that related to an ethnic matter. This was about the lack of photos of people with an ethnic background in leaflets produced by the Early Education and Childcare Service. The service will ensure that this does not happen again and further awareness training will be given on equalities during 2005/06.

6 Compliments for 2004/05

6.1 Compliments are an important part of service review as well as providing positive feedback to staff. Heads of services have valued the recording of numbers of compliments received. In total the Department received a minimum of 274 either by letter, email or verbally made.

7 Processes in the Education Department

7.1 Over the last three years the Education Department has improved its processes for logging complaints and compliments. It is clear that this information is included in the mechanism for service review and ensuring that services continue to be effective and, where appropriate, are improved. Whilst a County Council database may developed in the future, one branch of the Education Department has already developed its own. During 2005/06 discussions within the Childrens Services Department will look to a joint logging system.

8 Legal Implications

None

9 Financial Implications

None

10 Personnel implications

None

11 Impact assessment for equalities

In line with the corporate processes, the Education Department monitors complaints for equalities where they are part of the formal complaints procedure. Paragraph 5 gives further details of the one complaint received by the department relating to ethnicity.

12 Crime prevention issues

None

13 Views of local County Councillors

Not sought in the drafting of this report.

14 Conclusion

14.1 The number of complaints received by the department has remained relatively stable despite a challenging year for services such as Admissions and ICT. The increase resulted from only two specific issues.

14.2 The number of compliments logged and reported on has increased.

14.3 The Education Department has incorporated the system for monitoring complaints and compliments into its every day practices and is increasingly able to analyse this information as part of its service quality review.

14.4

Recommendations

1 That this report is noted.

Section 100 D - Local Government Act 1972 - background documents

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

NB: the list excludes

1. Published works

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

Title File

Comments, suggestions and complaints - Hampshire County Council's complaints procedure (Factsheet 4)