Contact: Michelle Smith tel: (01962) 846666 [email protected]

1 Summary

1.1 The purpose of this report is to inform the Governance Committee of the changes that have recently taken place relating to the management of Corporate Complaints and provide an update on compliance with the Data Protection, Freedom of Information and Regulation of Investigatory Powers Acts. Included in the report is statistical information on the level of growth relating to requests made for recorded information and personal data.. The report also highlights problems in dealing with complaints within acceptable timescales and the measures that have been taken to address this issue. Finally the report outlines the proposed approach to further improving standards.

1.2 The way in which the County Council handles and learns from complaints supports and informs the delivery of all the corporate priorities:-

¬ Hampshire safer and more secure for all

¬ Maximising wellbeing

¬ Enhancing our quality of place.

2 Recommendations

2.1 The Committee is asked to:

a) note the changes made which demonstrate delivery of improved services

b) endorse the approach being proposed for improving complaints handling.

3 Management Arrangements

3.1 Following the implementation of the Data Protection Act and the Freedom of Information Act there has been an increasing trend for cross-over of clients accessing personal data and information, which then leads to a complaint being received by the Council and vice versa. Historically corporate complaints were dealt with primarily by one complaints officer who was also responsible for responding to complaints which had been referred to the Ombudsman. At the same time a backlog of cases developed and it became clear that it was not practical to have one person covering this area of work due to the volume and increasing complexity of the complaints being received.

3.2 To address this issue a new specialised Complaints & Information Compliance Team (C&ICT) was established to manage all corporate and ombudsman complaints and all Data Protection, Freedom of Information and Regulation of Investigatory Powers matters at a corporate level. The team, which was established in July 2006, is made up of three officers supported by the use of one Independent Investigator, who previously worked for the Local Government Ombudsman working on a `casual'. Back up arrangements have also been developed to use, when needed, other officers within the department with proven skills in dealing with complaints.

4 Performance Issues

4.1 As mentioned above the changes were partly in response to a problem that had been identified in the time it was taking to respond to complaints. The table below shows the number of complaints made to the Ombudsman over the last three years and the average length of time it took to respond to first enquiries (this is where the Ombudsman required information from the County Council to investigate a complaint)

	Complaints made to Ombudsman	First Enquiries received from Ombudsman	Average no. of days to respond to first enquiries
2006-07	58	23	34
2005-06	75	17	48.2
2004-05	36	15	34.7

Attached as appendix 1 is a copy of the provisional complaints statistics received from the Local Government Ombudsman giving a breakdown of complaints by subject area.

4.2 It should be noted that the number of complaints for 2006-07 includes 27 complaints all relating to the same issue. As can be seen from the above the response times in 2005-06 became unacceptably high at 48.2 calendar days. Following the establishment of the new team response times have been reduced to 34 calendar days and we are now on target to meet the Ombudsman's deadlines of 28 calendar days, unless there were exceptional circumstances, and a further extension is agreed with the Ombudsman Investigator.

4.3 It is also important to note that there have been no findings of maladministration against the County Council in the three years figures reported.

4.4 A similar picture exists in relation to corporate complaints

	New Corporate Complaints received	Average time to investigate and respond to complaint
2007-08 (April)	4	19.3
2006-07 (second half yr) # (first half yr)	6 10	33 88.8

# There is still one complex social care case which is still ongoing

Again it can be seen that following the establishment of the new team response times have been significantly reduced and are in line with our corporate standard of 20 days.

4.5 What is not included in the above are a number of `on-going' complainants. These are individuals who remain dissatisfied with the response they have received and continue to contact the County Council raising issues. This can consume a considerable amount of time as it is important to ensure that all complaints are dealt with fairly and that any new issues are properly addressed.

4.6 It is important that lessons are learned from complaints. General observations indicate that poor communications between the departments and the complainant do escalate problems and checks will be carried out to monitor and try to improve this trend by providing training and feedback directly to the staff concerned.

5 Data Protection Act 1998

5.1 The number of Subject Access Requests made under the Data Protection Act continues to increase as follows

	2005	2006
Chief Executive's Department	51	100
Adult and Childrens' Services	147	207
Total	198	307

5.2 Despite the increase, processing of Subject Access Requests continues to improve with all requests meeting the 40 day disclosure deadline.

5.3 Work continues with departments at complying with the legislative requirements of the Act. Data Sharing between Government Departments and partner organisations continues to be an area requiring guidance and direction in order for the County Council to comply with legislation, which does not always concur with Government draft guidelines and proposals. Hampshire recently hosted the quarterly meeting of the South East County Councils FOI Group, which gives an opportunity for debate of topical cases, policies, published guidance, problems and improvements that can be shared. There was general agreement that requests are becoming more complex and demanding on officer time, the true cost of which is likely to exceed the legislative guidelines. However our aims reflect the need to be open and make as much information as possible available to the public.

6 Freedom of Information Act and Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act

6.1 The table below sets out the number of Freedom of Information Act and Environmental Information requests processed by the Council, but does not include the numerous questions processed by staff as `business as usual'.

Department	FOI 2005	FOI 2006	EIR 2005	EIR 2006
Chief Executive's	44	47	6	0
Children's Services	43	42	0	0
Adult Services	36	35	0	0
Recreation & Heritage	5	12	9	4
Environment	66	57	9	20
P.B. & R.S.	61	57	0	1
Treasurers	22	12	0	0
IT Services	5	12	0	0
Human Resources	9	20	0	0
Totals	291	294	24	25

6.2 The County Council continues to comply with the requirements of the Act and the Regulations. Support mechanisms are in place to assist all staff, by both their own Department Co-ordinators and from the Corporate team.

6.3 In January 2007 an Officer from the Interception of Communications Commissioner's Office visited the County Council to inspect the procedures for accessing communications data under Part 1 Chapter II of Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA). This part of the Act (Single Point of Contact, SPOC) relates to collecting electronic call data from a telecommunication provider and is used by Trading Standards, when necessary, for the investigation of suspected criminal activities, in order to protect the public.

6.4 The County Council's policies, procedures, training, authorisations and monitoring records were all reviewed and considered during the inspection. The Inspector was satisfied the Council has sound and robust procedures in place and his report only highlighted a few minor housekeeping recommendations. The quality of the applications sent for authorisation was high with one or two staff singled out for individual praise. A formal response has been sent to the Commissioner confirming all the recommendations have or are planned to be included in the procedures.

7 Future direction

7.1 There are a number of initiatives being pursued to improve the handling of complaints. Policies and procedures covering all aspects of processing complaints on behalf of the Chief Executive (Stage III) are being formulated together with detailed guidance on how to manage and progress all complaints. A booklet called `step by step guidance' has already been produced for use within the Chief Executive's Department and will form part of the policy documentation.

7.2 A corporate support group has been established for all department co-ordinators. This has been well attended by Complaints Co-ordinators and some other staff directly involved in complaint handling. Topics covered include a presentation on the role of the Local Government Ombudsman and guidance about dealing with persistent complainants. A workshop was run on `how to manage persistent and difficult complainants'. The group has identified the need for improved guidance and this is being developed. A target date of 30 September has been set for the agreement of a corporate policy and guidance for staff to follow when dealing with complaints

7.3 Communications are a key part of the plan to improve the standards of complaint handling. Factsheet 4 - `Comments, suggestions and complaints' is being updated by the Communications Team. Development work has also begun on creating pages for Complaints on Hantsnet to provide staff with detailed help and guidance with easy access to all polices and useful external links.

7.4 The other major development will be the implementation of Hantsdirect and the new Customer Relationship Management System. Work has already begun on mapping existing processes with a view to developing a single process to be used across the County Council and using the CRM system to record and monitor complaints management.

8 Conclusions

8.1 There is still much to be achieved however implementing the proposals in this report provides a strong foundation which will allow the Council to build and adapt and learn from the management and processing of all complaints, Data Protection Act and Freedom of Information Act requests for Information and enable the provision of an improved service to the public.

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 and documents which disclosure exempt or confidential information as defined in the Act:

None