Agenda item

1.            Ms Kennard introduced the report and advised that, since publishing the report, data had become available for HR25, with the rating achieved being green. Mr Watts and Mrs Beer then responded to comments and questions from the committee, including the following:-

a)    in response to questions about KPI CS07 – percentage of complaints responded to in timescale - Mrs Beer advised that, whilst no change was planned to the complaints policy, work was ongoing to ensure the complaints process was efficient, and data was regularly monitored and reviewed to take steps to lower the number of complaints needing to be dealt with;  

b)    asked about the themes of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests and why people asked what they did, Mr Watts advised that he would be able to report more detail for the committee on FOI requests in the near future as new work in this area had recently been started with the appointment of a team of graduates, tasked to research this area. He advised that both FOI and data subject requests were subject to a corporate key performance indicator but that data subject requests were not part of the FOI legislation but were covered by the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). Subject data subject requests tended to increase after showings of television programmes in which people traced lost family members. They took time to respond to, as a social worker may have to review the content of personal files, for example, in relation to a vulnerable person, before they could be provided to the questioner. The Government may decide to review or repeal GDPR legislation in the near future and the outcome of this would have an impact of this area of the Council’s work;

c)    in response to queries about the reasons for the percentage of daytime telephone calls answered being lower than target, Mrs Beer confirmed that retention and recruitment of staff was a national problem for call centres in the current buoyant recruitment market.  She confirmed that the Council continued to work closely with Agilisys, who provided the call centre service, on a range of measures, to address these issues. It was important to ensure that residents could find the information they needed or make contact with the County Council in a number of ways, including online.  This would help manage the volume of calls to Contact Point.  In response to a comment about the search engine on kent.gov, Mrs Beer confirmed that a review of the website was part of the Resident and User Experience Programme;

d)    the Chair commented that, previously, a Member IT group had existed to discuss and comment on issues such as the website development. Mr Watts added that such groups could be re-established if required but would need to be resourced

e)    asked how many people submitting FOIs were seeking Judicial Review, Mr Watts advised that a very small percentage sought referral to the Information Commissioner’s Office or a Judicial Review.  He commented that the FOI legislation was over 20 years old and had come into force at a time when personal internet access and local authority websites did not exist as they did now to help people find basic information for themselves, and that, subsequently, the nature of information now requested via FOI was more complex. People also sought data in different forms from that in which it was usually recorded. He undertook to include more statistics and detail in report to a later meeting; and

f)     asked how the performance of the Chief Executive’s and Deputy Chief Executive’s Directorate compared to that of other Directorates, Mrs Beer undertook to respond to the questioner outside the meeting.

2.             It was RESOLVED that the information set out in the report and given in response to comments and questions be noted, with thanks, and that a more detailed report on Freedom of Interest requests be made to a future meeting.