Issue - meetings

The report was approved, and relevant comments and suggestions were offered about
the Council’s performance in dealing with complaints in an appropriate and timely manner.

The report was submitted by Cllr Menna Trenholme.    

DECISION

The report was approved and relevant comments and suggestions were offered about
the Council’s performance in dealing with complaints in an appropriate and timely manner.

DISCUSSION

It was explained that there was a procedure to regularly report to the Cabinet on complaints and service improvement. It was noted that the Council had just received the Ombudsman's annual letter, that had been included with the report for the Cabinet's consideration. It was confirmed that the Ombudsman would receive correspondence that the letter had been submitted before the Cabinet for their attention.

It was explained that the number of complaints had reduced annually since 2018-19.  Nevertheless, the number of complaints the Council and the Ombudsman had received had increased significantly in the year 2021-22 as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.   It was reported that this was also true in other councils and the number of complaints had once more reduced.  

It was detailed that the report referred to formal (valid) complaints received via the Council's complaints system and the complaints sent to the Ombudsman. It was reported that the number of formal (valid) complaints had reduced a little this year compared with 2021-22 (from 60 complaints to 54). It was also noted that complaints sent to the Ombudsman had reduced from 41 in 2021-22 to 36 in 2022-23.

It was confirmed that there was no change to the complaints response time, namely 7 days.  Feedback had been received from the Ombudsman's Office that the response system for Cyngor Gwynedd complaints was realistic and already worked well and the council was willing to learn lessons from the complaints received.  

It was assured that the collaboration with Council departments was very good.  It was noted that a change had been seen in the Council's culture over the last few years, as complaints were seen as an opportunity to learn and improve services. It was recognised that there were more complaints about Council services than those in the report, however, these were resolved independently by the departments.

Members were reminded that the Council held regular training in the customer care field to use complaints as a learning tool and it was confirmed that this training was very popular.  Furthermore, it was confirmed that more 'Responding to Correspondence' training had been prepared by the Council, in response to the comments that every officer did not respond to correspondence in a timely manner.  It was noted that one pilot of this training had already taken place with the intention of holding another pilot during September 2023. 

Attention was drawn to the Wall of Success and it was noted that it continued to grow.  It was reported that seeing the comments of appreciation raised staff morale, particularly in the frontline.