Compliments & Complaints Annual Report 2021

The following graph shows the number of complaints managed through the corporate complaints process. 2099 stage 1 complaints have been received during this year which compares to 2064 received during 2019/20 by the former five councils.

994 of stage 1 complaints received were for the Waste and Recycling South Team reflecting problems with the service. These challenges principally originate from the poor service delivered by Serco Q1 & Q2 that the challenging mobilisation phase of Veolia who were left with sub-optimal vehicles from Serco. As at 28 June 2021 a full fleet replacement has been completed following a manufacturing delay due to Covid-19.

For context in the south of the county the Waste and Recycling Service deal with 332,775 collections each week.

An improvement plan is now in place with Veolia which is targeting areas of service failure, specifically missed collections, assisted collection and garden waste.

The majority of the stage 1 complaints received for Resources are for council tax, revenues and benefits issues. Many of these have been as a result of the following:

1. The grants regime, following government announcements for support to businesses and their eligibility.
2. In relation to these grants we are dependent on applying government guidance which a number of businesses disagree with.
3. Changes to the housing benefit regime linked to the further roll out of Universal Credit with complaints being raised about being chased for the debt.

Improvement work being carried out by Service Finance includes:

1. Changes made to joint working with housing colleagues to ensure better collaboration with them.
2. The implementation of additional measures to ensure that information received from the DWP is verified and implications communicated to residents with signposting for potential support.

For Planning, Growth & Sustainability 233 stage 1 complaints were received in respect of planning and development management issues. The amount of planning applications received in 2021 averaged 1000 per month which is an increase of 36% from the previous year

Improvement work being done by the Planning Service includes:

1. The Planning Improvement Board was set up in April 2021 – this is an operational board to provide an oversight of the improvement work across the Planning & Environment service.
2. There are 5 key themes for improvements in this area:

• Speedy roll out of digital improvements
• Cultural change/customer focus
• Consistent service standards
• KPI Performance
• Finance and Commerciality

Just over half of the stage 1 corporate complaints received for Children’s Services were for SEND matters with the rest split over Children’s Social Care and School Admissions. During 2020/21 the number of Education, Health & Care Plans maintained by Buckinghamshire increased by 7% to 4910 whilst SEND were hit with resourcing issues affecting their ability to maintain regular communication with parents.

Improvement work being done by the SEND Service include the following:

1. Designated Social Worker (iSEND) joined January 2021 ‘forging closer links with social care and to enhance quality of EHCP’
2. SEND Improvement Manager joined Autumn 2020 ‘to drive forward SEND Improvement, compliance and audits’
3. Education Project Manager for overseeing Complaints & Tribunals April 2020
4. A full overhaul of the Annual Review process with training given to all staff in iSEND, Business Support and School SENCos in March 2021
5. Revised Personal Budget policy and internal process

The graph above shows the outcomes of stage 1 complaints by directorate. 1283 (61%) of stage 1 complaints were either fully or partially upheld. 557 (27%) complaints were not upheld.

You can see from the graph that Communities had the highest number of upheld and partially upheld complaints; the majority of these were for Waste and Recycling.

There were 229 complaints withdrawn before a response indicating that services have been working with customers to resolve their complaints without the need for a formal response. When this happens, the customer is asked whether they are happy for the complaint to be withdrawn.

The graph below shows the response times for stage 1 complaints. The timeframe for responding to a stage 1 complaint is 20 working days. This timeframe was achieved for 55% of cases.

Delays in providing stage 1 responses increased in the second and third quarter of the year mainly due to the increase in the number of complaints received together with pressures related to the pandemic. Work is being carried out with services to help reduce the timescales.