Home > Agenda item

Agenda item

Children's Statutory Complaints Report 2017/18

This report summarises the Council’s performance in dealing with Children’s Statutory Complaints for 2017/2018.

Minutes:

The Complaints Manager presented the Annual Report which gave an overview of the Council’s performance in dealing with statutory children’s complaints.

 

The Sub-Committee learned that stage one complaints had increased by 16% from the previous year whilst stage 2 had decreased by 33% and stage 3 panels by 50%. There were a number of cases that had been referred to the Ombudsman, but none were upheld.

 

The Interim Director of Early Help and Children’s Social Care informed the Sub-Committee that a common theme arising from the complaints concerned a perceived lack of communication or miscommunication. In response to this the Service would concentrate its efforts on training and best practice in order to improve future communication. The Head of the Quality Assurance team would liaise with the complaints team on a quarterly bases to identify themes and look at lessons to be learnt which will feed into a Learning and Development programme to improve services.

 

A Member queried what actions had been taken to improve engagement with foster carers as the report indicated that complaints received were relatively low in comparison to the size of the Service. Officers advised that there had been a survey of foster carers to capture their experience of the Service, as the development and support provided to them was crucial to the retention of carers. Officers agreed to circulate the percentage of uptake of the survey to Members after the meeting.

 

A Member commented that it was important that complaints relating to poor communication were dealt with at stage one. Any possible delays may exacerbate a situation that could be easily resolved.

 

In response to a Member question on lessons learnt and what would be done differently, officers stated that opportunities for training on how to improve internal processes were being explored. Engagement and the relationship between the complaints team and Children’s Services had improved due to better communication. Training and support had also been given to officers in order to improve the quality of responses given to complainants.

 

The Sub-Committee requested that the Quarter 2 complaints report to be brought to their next meeting for review. The three Chairs of Scrutiny would discuss after the meeting how best to proceed with the monitoring of complaints, which was felt to lack information on comparative data and ordinary communication activities, which would allow Members to appropriately scrutinise the performance data presented.

 

In reaching its recommendations, the Sub-Committee reached the following CONCLUSIONS:

1. That many of the complaints received were relating to poor communication and clear context of how we communicate as a council was not evident in the report.

2. There was a lack of data in the report on how the Council’s performance compared against other Local Authorities.

3. There was little information on the Councils course of action for those that had received a poor service but did not complain.

4. That performance against SLA was poor

 

The Sub-Committee RESOLVED to recommend that:

1. An update report was required on progress and improvements to be brought to the Sub-Committee on a quarterly basis as well as an overview report to be brought before the Sub-Committee at its 27 November 2018 meeting.

2. Future reports to include data on the Councils performance against neighbouring Local Authorities.

 

Supporting documents: