Issue - meetings

Members gave consideration to a report presented by the Customer Experience Officer regarding the current status of customer complaints and the new complaints handling process. She explained her role in the complaints’ process and how this had changed over recent months. The Head of Paid Service explained that the role of the Customer Experience Officer was to act as an advocate for the customer to ensure complaints were listened to and used as a learning opportunity to improve services and the overall experience for the customer. The experience and knowledge gained by the Customer Experience Office would be used to identify themes and areas of concern.

Members of Committee enquired as to why the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) may not investigate a complaint, whether compliments were categorised per service in the same way complaints were and whether the amended timescales had made any difference.

In response, the Customer Experience Officer explained that there were areas the LGO did not investigate, such as planning, and these cases would be recorded as ‘not investigated’. She added that compliments were categorised per service and it was true that the services with most complaints did also receive most compliments. She also confirmed that the amended time scales had made a difference as she was able to complete most enquiries by herself, without needing to involve multiple parties which, under previous processes, led to unnecessary delays.

Members of Committee expressed their pleasure at the figures for compliments across all services and congratulated the Customer Experience Officer on her work. It was noted that committee were also due to receive another update report in November 2018.

            RESOLVED that the contents of the report be noted.