Decision details

To receive a report of the Head of Customer Services providing an annual report on complaints, comments and compliments.

The Cabinet had before it a *report of the Head of Customer Services regarding a review of the corporate complaints policy.

The Head of Customer Services outlined the contents of the report stating that a review of the policy took place every 3 years, during 2014/15 a review of the complaints recording and monitoring system had taken place resulting in improvements to internal working practices and customer service.  The review also considered the guidance issued by the Local Government Ombudsman.  The policy had been updated to include these new working practices.

Consideration was given to:

·         Complaints received by email being recorded on specific issues for example planning and environmental health and whether the complaints were being fed into the corporate complaints system.  It was suggested that such emails should be marked as an official complaint;

·         The mechanism for dealing with vexatious complaints;

·         Whether Members complaints were registered;

·         Whether there was a ‘lessons learnt’ procedure following a complaint which may amend a procedure if an issue was highlighted.

RESOLVED that the updated corporate complaints policy be approved.

(Proposed by the Chairman)

Note:  *Report previously circulated, copy attached to minutes.