Agenda item

1.      The Customer Experience and Engagement Manager introduced the report which outlined the changes to the Customer Feedback Policy and the key reasons for the Council not adopting the LGSCO’s Code for Complaints Handling timescales. The following reasons for this were specified:

·         Based on the current performance of the Council not achieving and coupled with the potential future decisions made by the Council, it would not be feasible.

·         In practical terms the LGSO suggested that 15 days was the specified time frame in which stage 1 complaints were to be addressed (this encompassed acknowledge and response) and stage 2 the LGSO allowed 25 days, however KCC policy maintained these would be addressed within 20 days.

·         The Code excluded complaints which the Council currently addressed, being Adult Social Care and Children Act complaints (although these are governed by separate legislation).

·         There will be a change in the way some aspects of complaints are reported to reflect the Ombudsman Code of Complaints, this will be covered in the 2025 Governance and Audit report.

2.     In answer to questions and comments raised by Members, it was said that:

a)    Allowance had been given to the self assessment form which provided an opportunity for Councils to state their reasons for noncompliance of the code.

b)    Noncompliance with the Code is permitted; however, the Ombudsman would likely penalise the Council for noncompliance with its own designed policies.

c)    For the remainder of this year and the next, the focus was to address complaints within 20 days and then focus on the impact on front line resources. The Ombudsman code of conduct covered SEND cases which are some of the most complex, hence why it was difficult to resolve them within the specified 20 days.

d)    Going forwards, it was confirmed that the item will feature in the Annual Governance Statement and be monitored as such.

e)    There had been a lot of change in the SEND Team which made it difficult to address complaints in a shorter period of time. Evidence gathering took time and therefore it was stated that the available resources did not match the Ombudsman’s policy.

f)        In response to a question raised regarding staffing issues, it was confirmed that the Apprenticeship levy still required employment and currently there was not the available resource.

g)     Front line staff were completing the assessments which meant that the amount of funding and resources required for new hires was currently unknown.

h)     At a corporate level, the primary focus was on reducing backlog and the long term goal was to ‘get back to business’ as usual. The next step was to work towards the reduction of time spent on addressing complaints. The self assessment form will return every year and this will be used to monitor the readiness of adopting the Ombudsman Code.

i)       The Chief Executive Officer confirmed that an overall sense of direction would be provided at a future meeting, which would set out progress and provide Corporate assurance that steps towards compliance are being taken.

3.               RESOLVED to note the and comment on the updated policy and  Ombudsman’s code.

4.               RESOLVED to comment and acknowledge the self assessment form (Appendix A).