Contact: Mark Braggins, ext 7103 email: [email protected]

1. Summary

1.1 This report discusses complaints, compliments and other types of feedback recorded for the Environment Department between April 2005 and March 2006. It follows on from the 2004-05 Annual Report which was presented to the Committee in June 2005.

2. Corporate Strategy

2.1 This report supports Aim 5 (Improving Services) of the Corporate Strategy through analysis of complaints, compliments and other types of feedback, and continued improvement with the way they are handled by the Environment Department.

3. Complaints Monitoring

3.1 Members of the public contact the Environment Department in a variety of ways, including in person, by telephone, email, letter and via forms on the Corporate Website.

3.2 It is Corporate Policy that all departments record Complaints and Compliments, and that statistics are provided annually to Policy Review Committees and the Chief Executive's Department.

3.3 Historically in the Environment Department, a variety of methods have been used to record complaints and compliments as the Public Enquiry Manager (PEM) database was originally introduced to meet specific highway-related requirements. For several years, non-highways staff have been asked to forward complaints and compliments to Business Support, if not already recorded in PEM. These are then input to the Complaints and Compliments Database, which is an Access Database developed by Business Support.

4. Current Situation

4.1 Data from PEM is imported weekly to the Complaints Reporting System where it is combined with the non-PEM data. A series of reports¹ is run over the combined data and then reviewed by the Complaints Manager (Head of Business Support). This is not ideal, as the data in PEM continues to change and it becomes increasingly difficult during each financial year to reconcile data in the Complaints Reporting System with the data in PEM.

4.2 A summary of Complaints and Compliments is set out in the following paragraphs.

5. Complaints

Definition of Complaint

5.1 The Environment Department defines a complaint as "Any letter, telephone call, personal representation made to the Department regarding a failure in its services and functions".

Complaints Recorded

5.2 The table below shows that 277 complaints were recorded by staff in the Environment Department between 1 April 2005 and 31 March 2006. Complaints by type are summarised in the chart below:

Figures for the previous two years are shown for comparison.

5.3 The overall trend in the number of recorded complaints is upward. This follows efforts to encourage all staff to record complaints, and represents an increase in the use of the PEM system across the Department.

5.4 The table below shows the split between PEM and non-PEM (hard copy forms, emails from Information Centres and Chief Executive's Department, etc) for 2005-06:

Category	PEM	as % of total	NON-PEM	as % of total
Attitude of Staff	27	16	31	30
Equality Issues	3	2	0	0
Health and Safety	40	23	7	7
Level of Service	70	41	54	51
Poor Communication	23	13	2	11
Response Time	9	5	1	1
Grand Total	172	100	105	100

5.5 To facilitate improved reconciliation of data it is proposed, for those sections who do not currently use PEM and do not wish to, that Business Support records complaints and compliments on their behalf. Business Support will also continue to undertake to notify the appropriate section contacts that complaints have been received.

Equalities Issues

5.6 Three complaints were recorded as equalities issues. However, subsequent examination of the detail for each indicates that these were incorrectly recorded.

Complaints Under Other Categories

5.7 A search of all records not recorded either as complaints or compliments in PEM found 694 records containing the word "complain" in the description. A cursory examination of the description suggests that 57 of these should have been recorded as complaints and were incorrectly recorded under some other category. Therefore, the total number of complaints for the year may be as high as 334. A report listing the 57 items with questionable categories will be circulated to section managers to review individual cases. Reminders will also be sent to all staff containing guidance on which types of contact should be recorded as complaints, defects, compliments, etc.

6. Other Types of Contact

6.1 To put the 277 (or 334) complaints in perspective, a total of 66,758² communications were recorded in PEM³ during the same period. This is considerably more than the total for the previous two years which has been slightly under 60,000. Graphs showing the proportions of different types of communication are attached as an appendix.

7. Compliments

7.1 There were also 286 compliments recorded during the same period (80 of which relate to helpfulness of staff, etc and 206 which relate to quality or speed of service).

8. Use of PEM Data

8.1 Examination of data contained within PEM as part of compiling this report suggests that PEM is a mine of information that could potentially be used for greatly improved business intelligence.

8.2 The identification of trends and patterns should help to inform policy and enable preventative measures to be taken proactively and before they generate complaints or other types of issues raised by the public. This, together with management of the system on behalf of the Department, is time consuming and requires resource to be invested to realise its full benefits. Consideration will be given to the management of PEM and other systems containing potentially useful information in the light of the emerging Information Management Strategy.

9. Conclusion

9.1 More can be done to improve follow-up with members of the public who contact the Environment Department, and to better understand how they feel that individual complaints are being handled.

9.2 Historically there have been missed opportunities to investigate the circumstances leading up to complaints taking place; which may also have informed policy and assisted with future service and efficiency improvements.

9.3 There is currently no clear responsibility or identified resource for the management of the PEM system. This is a barrier to improving the effectiveness of the system as a tool for the Department

9.4 Whilst it is anticipated that the new Corporate Contact Centre will gather information and feedback on call types via the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, PEM is an excellent source of information about needs, aspirations and issues experienced by the Environment Department's customers. Issues regarding lack of use by all sections and inconsistency of input into the system remain a concern, and not using PEM as a tool for improved business intelligence may be perceived as an opportunity wasted.

10. Impact Assessment

10.1 Assessment of the Race Relations (Amendment) Act has been considered in this report but no adverse impact has been identified.

Recommendations

1. That in view of the Information Management, Ashburton Court Refurbishment and Corporate Contact Centre projects the Environment Department should:

(i) ensure that all complaints and compliments received for sections that do not currently use Public Enquiry Manager (PEM) are input to PEM by Business Support;

(ii) enable standard reports to be created in PEM that can be run either departmentally or by individual sections; and

(iii) undertake a review of the management of PEM in the light of the Corporate Contact Centre and the draft Environment Customer Strategy which is currently being prepared.

2. That a detailed appraisal be undertaken of how hard copy correspondence received in the Environment Department would be handled when the new Corporate Contact Centre has been set up; to be done in conjunction with the Information Management and Ashburton Court Refurbishment projects.

961/MB

APPENDIX

Enquiry Manager - Source of Records 2005/06