Issue - meetings

Report CS18192

The Committee considered a report setting out statistics for complaints and compliments received by the Education, Care and Health Services Department during the 2017/18 financial year.  The report also provided oversight of the annual Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman letter which summarised complaints and enquiries the Ombudsman had received relating to the London Borough of Bromley for the 2017/18 financial year.

The Local Authority had received 510 complaints during the 2017/18 financial year which represented a 3% reduction on the previous year, including a significant reduction of 25% in complaints in the area of Adult Social Care where 183 complaints had been received.  Of the 510 complaints received, 44% were upheld.  58% of all complaints were responded to within 20 working days which was an increase on the previous year but continued to be recognised as an area of development that would be targeted by a training programme during 2018/19.  A number of compliments had been received about the work of individual Local Authority officers as well teams across the Education, Care and Health Services Department.  The Local Authority had been the subject of 165 referrals to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman which represented a 3% increase on the previous year.  Of the 165 referrals, 54 underwent a detailed investigation of which 30 (56%) were upheld, which was lower than the London average of 65% and the national average of 57%.  Following concerns raised by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman around the compliance rate for implementing Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman recommendations, the Local Authority had revised its approach to monitoring compliance, including where extended deadlines had been agreed, and between 19^th February 2018, when the Assistant Ombudsman had visited the Local Authority, to 31^st March 2018, 42 of 43 Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman deadlines had been met.

The Chairman highlighted that the number of complaints received was very small compared to the number of transactions undertaken for service users.

In response to questions from Members, the Head of Customer Engagement and Complaints (ECHS) confirmed that discrepancies in the response rate to complaints by different services was a result of a number of factors, including variations in the way complaints were handed across services.  Responses to complaints relating to safeguarding were often delayed to allow safeguarding procedures to be initiated.  Complaints were taken very seriously by the Local Authority and robust processes were in place to ensure that the learning from complaints fed into continual service improvement and was reflected in the training programme.

RESOLVED that the report be noted.