240520 ARS Board Annual Complaints Handling Report 2023-24
Renfrewshire Council · 20 January 2025
Back to Audit, Risk and Scrutiny Board — 20 January 2025 and its agenda
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___________________________________________________________________ To: Audit, Risk and Scrutiny Board On: 20 January 2025 ___________________________________________________________________ Report by: Chief Executive ___________________________________________________________________ Heading: 2023/24 Complaints Handling Performance ___________________________________________________________________ 1. Summary 1.1 Renfrewshire Council’s complaint handling procedure (CHP) helps the Council to improve services and processes based on customer feedback. It is one of a range of methods to help the Council understand how well it is delivering its services. 1.2 Introduced in 2013, the Council’s CHP complies with the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman’s (SPSO) guidance and aims to help ‘get it right first time’. The expectation is to have quicker, simpler and more streamlined complaints handling with early response by capable, well-trained staff. As part of the procedure, all complaints are recorded and monitored. 1.3 This report provides information on complaints closed during the year from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024 and performance on key indicators, as well as highlighting improvements made to the complaints handling procedure (CHP) to ensure that complaints are handled well, and the organisation learns from them and improves service delivery where appropriate. Data is taken from the Council’s DASH system, which is used by all services and allows for consistency in recording and reporting of complaints information. 1.4 The key messages highlighted in the report are as follows:
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• 10,025 complaints were received in 2023/24, compared with 9,155 in 2022/23 (please note changes to methodology noted at section 4.2; • Over 91% of our complaints are dealt with as a frontline response, demonstrating the Council’s commitment to getting it right first time in response to complaints (87.9% in 2022/23); • 85.7% of frontline complaints and 94% of investigation complaints received were completed within target timescales (83.8% and 89.5% respectively in 2022/23); • the average time to respond to frontline complaints increased to 8.5 days, against a target of 5 days and is a decrease from the previous year’s performance of 4 days and is partly attributable to a housekeeping exercise as detailed in 4.5; • the average time to respond to an investigation complaint was 15.2 days, slightly longer than the 14 days reported for 2022/23, however still well within the SPSO target of 20 days; and • the 2023/24 breakdown of complaints received by services continues to be broadly reflective of the volume of services provided, with Environment, Housing and Infrastructure delivering the highest volume and widest scope of frontline Council services and consequently receiving the highest volume of customer interactions and complaints 1.5 A performance scorecard has been included within the appendix of this report to provide additional data for 2023/24 performance against SPSO indicators. 1.6 All indicators will continue to be monitored regularly and support and guidance will be provided to all services to assist with analysing and improving performance where required. 2. Recommendations 2.1 It is recommended that members of the Audit, Risk and Scrutiny Board: • Note the content of this report. 3. Background 3.1 Renfrewshire Council’s Complaint Handling Procedure (CHP) was implemented in 2013 and complies with the model complaints handling procedure for local authorities introduced by the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman at that time. It is regularly reviewed to include updated guidance. The most recent guidance was implemented in 2023/24. 3.2 The CHP reflects Renfrewshire Council’s ongoing commitment to the provision of high-quality complaints handling. The CHP operates to ensure
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that complaints are processed and responded to consistently within target timescales, with a particular focus on working to resolve customer dissatisfaction as close as possible to the point of contact or service delivery. 3.3 Services are required to record, analyse and monitor complaints performance and use the information gathered through the CHP to improve service delivery wherever possible. 3.4 In line with the SPSO complaints handling procedure, Renfrewshire Council’s CHP uses a two-stage process, Frontline Response and Investigation (also referred to as Stage 1 and Stage 2). 3.5 The frontline response stage aims to quickly resolve straightforward customer complaints that require little or no investigation. Any member of staff may deal with complaints at this stage, and these are often dealt with ‘on the spot’ – an explanation, apology or an action to put something right may all be appropriate responses to a frontline complaint. 3.6 The main principle is to seek an early response, resolving complaints at the earliest opportunity and as close to the point of service delivery as possible. This may mean a face-to-face discussion with the customer or asking an appropriate member of staff to deal directly with the complaint. The Council has 5 working days to respond to these complaints. 3.7 An example of a complaint which may be addressed at the frontline response stage is where a customer complains that a staff member failed to attend a scheduled appointment. When this is reported, the service should provide an apology and reschedule the appointment at a suitable time for the customer. 3.8 Not all complaints are suitable for frontline response and not all complaints will be satisfactorily resolved at this stage. Investigation complaints are typically complex or require a detailed examination before resolving. These complaints may already have been considered at the frontline response stage, or they may have been identified from the start as needing investigation. In these cases, the customer should receive an acknowledgement of their complaint within three working days and be advised that it is being dealt with as an investigation. 3.9 An investigation aims to establish all the facts relevant to the points made in the complaint and to give the customer a full, objective and proportionate response that represents the final position. The Council has 20 days to respond to these complaints. 3.10 An example of an investigation complaint may relate to the standard or nature of a repair within a Council property which requires an inspection or visit to
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investigate. As a supervisor or manager might need to examine the repair to assess this and agree with the customer the corrective work required, it may require the 20-day timescale. Services may also agree an extension to the timescale with the customer. The SPSO procedures allow councils to extend an investigation for a further 10 working days. 3.11 In line with the model complaints handling procedure provided by the SPSO and with practice in other local authorities, Renfrewshire’s complaints policy does not include a number of service areas that are processed through other means. Some examples include: the right to appeal a refusal of planning permission or to appeal planning conditions (this is made to the Local Review Body or the Scottish Ministers); allegations of bullying in schools (these are treated and investigated as bullying incidents by the education establishment); and a compensation claim for personal injury, loss of or damage to property (these are processed through the Council's standard 'Public Liability Claim Form'). 4. 2023/24 Council Performance 4.1 Complaints are crucial in identifying areas or processes that need to be improved for our customers and Councils are required to report their complaints handling performance against a range of key performance indicators related to the SPSO complaints handling procedure. This report provides information on the complaints closed during the period 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024 and Appendix 1 details Renfrewshire Council’s complaints performance for 2023/24 against these key SPSO performance indicators. The SPSO publishes all local authority complaints annual reports on its website. 4.2 A new complaints system was launched in April 2020 and has now been fully rolled out with all Council services excluding schools logging their complaints on the same system. This means that for reporting purposes, all performance data is now taken from a single source. In previous years, the data includes all issues raised by customers through our complaints process, even where they are reviewed and found not to be a complaint (such as when someone used our complaints system to raise an issue about another organisation, or to make a service request). From 2023/24, these will be excluded from reporting wherever an item has been closed with the status “Closed, not a complaint”. This brings reporting more in line with other local authorities. 4.3 In 2023/24 we received 10,025 complaint cases, an increase of over 800 cases from the previous year, reported at 9,155 which was consistent to the 9,193 cases received during 2021/22.
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4.4 All Council services strive to ensure that complaints are answered correctly first time and that customers are responded to quickly. During 2023/24, 91.5% of complaints were addressed through a frontline response, with 85.6% of frontline complaints and 94% of investigation complaints received completed within target timescales. This compares with 83.8% and 89.5% respectively in 2022/23. 4.5 Councilwide, the average time to respond to a frontline investigation was 8.5 days, over the target of 5 days by 3.5 days. This increase was due to services undertaking a one-off housekeeping exercise to close off historic frontline cases, as the complaints system does not currently allow closures to be backdated and a number had not been closed on the system timeously. Reminders have been issued to all relevant staff reminding them of the issue in order to reduce future incidences. If historic cases open for more than nine months were excluded from the figures then the average time to respond to a frontline complaint would drop to 4.1 days. Investigation complaint average time in working days remains consistent at 15.2 days, slightly higher than the 14 days reported for 2022/23 and still within the SPSO target of 20 days. 4.6 Figures 1 and 2 below show the service breakdown of total complaints received and those closed within the timescales, during the period 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024. This is for frontline response and investigation complaint cases. Figure 3 shows the breakdown by service of investigations which were granted an extension. The complaints for social work services are included in services provided by Children’s Services, whilst the data for the Chief Executive’s Service also includes those complaints sent directly to the Chief Executive but which can relate to any service area within the Council.
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9 83 7136 452 7688 24 85 8331 509 8967 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 9000 10000 Chief Executives Children's Services Environment, Housing & Infrastructure Finance & Rescources Total Complaints Figure 1: Frontline Complaints Closed 2023/24 Frontline complaints closed within 5 days Total Frontline complaints closed 10 115 477 139 741 12 125 505 146 788 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 Chief Executives Children's Services Environment, Housing & Infrastructure Finance & Rescources Total Complaints Figure 2: Investigation Complaints Closed 2023/24 Investigation complaints closed within 20 days Total Investigation complaints closed 1 28 1 4 34 1 31 1 5 38 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 Chief Executives Children's Services Environment, Housing & Infrastructure Finance & Rescources Total Complaints Figure 3: Investigation Extension Complaints Closed 2023/24 Investigation Extension complaints closed within 5 days Total Investigation Extension complaints closed
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4.7 Scrutiny of complaints data and performance continues to be carried out on a regular basis at service-level management team meetings and has been supported by improvements in both data analytics and access to management information. This focus is having a positive impact with response rates for frontline resolutions completed within timescale improving from 83.8% in 2022/23 increasing to 85.7% during 2023/24. 4.8 Similar improvements have also been seen in terms of investigation response rates, having improved from 89.5% in 2022/23 to 94% during 2023/24. 4.9 Overall the breakdown of complaints received by services is broadly reflective of the volume of services provided. Environment, Housing and Infrastructure delivers the highest volume of frontline Council services, and the most diverse, covering over 250 council premises, 91,000 households and businesses, oversees a further 600 assets, supports more than 847 km of roads and transport infrastructure, collects more than 155,000 bins weekly and manages over 12,300 Council houses. It is to be expected therefore that the service will receive the highest volume of customer interactions. 4.10 Environment, Housing and Infrastructure dealt with over 8,800 complaints during 2023/24, accounting for over 90% of all cases received during the reporting year. (In 2022/23, E&I and Housing together accounted for 85.7% of all complaints). Waste remains the top subject category with a number of other categories featuring as the most common categories used Council-wide including responsive repairs, building services, Neighbourhood Services followed by roads repair. Despite the number of complaints received the service continues to demonstrate strong performance during the reporting year with the average investigation taking 15.7 days to complete under the target of 20 days. 4.11 Complaints received by the Chief Executive’s Service mainly relate to the Environmental Taskforce operated through the Communities team within Policy and Partnerships (as customers use the Dash complaints module to log fly tipping reports), and to delays with planning applications and building warrants, with the average complaints investigation taking 18.5 days to complete, well within the SPSO 20 day target. The process has been amended so that flytipping reports will be recorded and responded to as a service request going forward, rather than through the complaints system. 4.12 The majority of complaints made to Finance and Resources related to Council Tax or benefits, with complaints relating to delays in processing (benefits, revenues, SWF). The service responds to almost 7% of all complaints received Council-wide and showed strong performance when dealing with
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investigation cases, the average number of days when processing these reported as 14.9 days. 4.13 Complaints in Children’s Services are often complex as they typically relate to people rather than processes. The service makes every effort to respond to complaints in a timeous manner, taking cognisance of any sensitivities or complexities related to the child/young person, or associated provision. Current complaints data relates to social work services for children and families, to justice social work, and to those complaints made directly to senior managers about early years and education; it does not yet include frontline complaints dealt with directly by schools and early years establishments. Work is underway to roll out the system with schools with a pilot currently underway. 4.14 Children’s Services dealt with 266 complaint cases during 2023/24 with the majority dealt with as investigations due to complexity, with the average timescale 12.2 days. The main reason for complaints relates to schools, the most common complaints are around Additional Support Needs, bullying incidents and parents /carers being unhappy about how a schools has dealt with incidents such as these. 4.15 In 2023/24, 54 matters were escalated to the SPSO relating to Renfrewshire Council. Of these, 10 were seeking advice and a further 39 moved to an early resolution without the need for an investigation. Those 39 included 23 cases where the SPSO found that there had been good complaints handling practice and a further 10 where they ruled there would be insufficient benefit from conducting any investigation. Only 1 complaint was progressed to an investigation and the matter was resolved with no requirement for a decision as to whether the complaint be upheld or not. Ten other local authorities had a higher number of issues escalated to the SPSO. 4.16 As part of the functionality of the complaints system, customers can also provide comments and compliments, with 111 cases recorded during 2023/24 (93 comments and 18 compliments). A few examples of these compliments are provided below: - “Customer arranged an uplift, staff were very professional and goods uplifted this morning…job well done.” - “Customer called to advise staff who attended to cut grass most recently were outstanding and really pleased with how it was done - “Thank you very much for removing the household waste very promptly” - “A big thanks to your team .for de-weeding along the walls and the cleaning of the pavements, this has made a huge noticeable difference” - “I called to report a repair, the adviser could not have been any more helpful.
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This was very much appreciated, and the adviser was also very clear, polite & courteous - a credit to Renfrewshire Council” - “I would like to thank and commend your operative for the efficient clearing of the leaves and general rubbish” - “I have spoken to several of the staff in your customer services department, but on the two occasions the lady I spoke to was magnificent. Not only did she sort out my issues efficiently, but when I suggested that I phone back as it was approaching closing time, she said, "No. That won't be necessary. We're here to help. What a treasure!” - “I would like compliment the Neighbourhood Services Team on its prompt and professional response to my concerns regarding litter...well done!!” - “Thank all staff in Renfrewshire Council particularly Council Tax section” - “Please give a Compliment to the lovely girl Vicki in Paisley South Areas call centre, she was very helpful to me today on my call and put me at ease. Much appreciated x” 5. Learning from complaints and improving the Council’s complaints procedure 5.1 The complaint system, Dash, went live on 1st April 2020. It is part of the MyAccount platform, allowing current MyAccount users to log, track and receive a response to their complaint or compliment on this single system. Customers can also still log a complaint online using an online form or by writing, phoning or emailing the Council. As mentioned above, the system was configured to address some of the new national complaints procedure, such as the renaming of frontline complaints and adding the new outcome of resolved complaints. 5.2 As the roll out of the new system was carried out during the pandemic, it was supported by online training materials, webinars and a system helpdesk for relevant officers using the new system. Work will continue with schools to progress a roll-out there. 5.3 In preparation for the implementation of the SPSO’s revised complaints procedure, additional training materials were developed, highlighting the key changes to the procedure, as well as updated staff guides. 5.4 Services have access to live data from the complaints system to support them in understanding trends and performance, the data also supports services to identify opportunities for improvement. In October 2024, an audit of complaints (based on a random sample from each service) was undertaken to measure our approach against the SPSO’s Quality Framework. The audit was carried out by a group of officers drawn from all four service areas, and the learning from the audit has been reported back to services to support
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continuous improvement. The audit showed broadly strong performance across services particularly in the tone and quality of information provided to customers in the response. It is intended that such audits will be carried out on an annual basis. It is also intended that some benchmarking will be done against other local authorities. __________________________________________________________________ Implications of the Report 1. Financial – none 2. HR & Organisational Development - none 3. Community/Council Planning – We consider our services performance against a number of strategic outcomes to measure how we are delivering better outcomes for our local communities: Living our Values – complaints are monitored under this outcome of the Council Plan and service improvement planning process. 4. Legal - none. 5. Property/Assets - none 6. Information Technology - none. 7. Equality & Human Rights - The Recommendations contained within this report have been assessed in relation to their impact on equalities and human rights. No negative impacts on equality groups or potential for infringement of individuals’ human rights have been identified arising from the recommendations contained in the report because it is for noting only. 8. Health & Safety – none 9. Procurement – none 10. Risk – none 11. Privacy Impact – none 12. COSLA Policy Position – none
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13. Children’s Rights – this report is for noting and has no direct implications on children’s rights. However, the Council is reviewing the new guidance on child-friendly complaints and will look to identify how this can be adopted within our current complaints process. 14. Climate Risk- none _______________________________________________________ List of Background Papers: none __________________________________________________________________ Author: Pamela McDonald, Chief Executive’s Service
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Appendix 1: Renfrewshire Council Annual Complaints Report SPSO Indicators (due to rounding, percentages may not total 100) Total number of complaints received, frontline and investigation 2021/22 2022/23 2023/24 Total number of complaints received (open and closed) 9,193 9,155 10,025 Number of complaints closed at Frontline Response 8,082 8,084 8967 Complaints closed at Frontline Response as a percentage of all complaints closed 84.1% 87.9% 91.5% Number of complaints closed at Investigation 1,212 892 788 Complaints closed at Investigation as a percentage of all complaints 13.2% 13.2% 8.0% Number of complaints closed at Investigation after escalation 81 60 38 Complaints closed at Investigation after escalation as a percentage of all complaints 1.31% 0.6% 0.4%
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Average time in working days for a full response to complaints at each stage 2021/22 2022/23 2023/24 Average time in working days to respond to complaints at Frontline Response 5 4 8.5 Average time in working days to respond to complaints at Investigation 16.5 14 15.2 Average time in working days to respond to complaints after escalation 9.2 9 5.3 Percentage of complaints at each stage which were responded to in full within the set timescales 2021/22 2022/23 2023/24 Complaints closed at Frontline Response within 5 working days as a percentage of the total number of Frontline Response complaints 80.6% 83.8% 85.7% Complaints closed at Investigation within 20 working days as a percentage of total number of Investigation complaints 76.7% 89.5% 94%
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Number and percentage of complaints where an extension to the timescale has been authorised 2021/22 2022/23 2023/24 Complaints closed at Frontline Response where extension was authorised, as a percentage of all complaints at Frontline Response 0.0% 0.0% 0% Complaints closed at Investigation where extension was authorised, as a percentage of all complaints closed at Investigation 4.89% 0.77% 4.56%