Issue - meetings

That the effectiveness of the complaints procedure with lessons being learnt to improve service provision be noted.

The Chief Officer (Social Services) introduced a report on the Annual Report on the Social Services Complaints and Compliments Procedure.  He provided background information and advised that  the percentage of complaints from adults on the services received had dropped since the previous year although the number of referrals had increased.  The Chief Officer explained that all complaints were scrutinised and used to improve both services as part of a ‘lessons learned’ process.    He invited the Complaints Officer for Social Services to present the report.

                        The Complaints Officer for Social Services referred to the main considerations, as detailed in the report, concerning complaints received by Social Services for Adults and Social Services for Children.  He advised that a summary of the complaints across both service areas was appended to the report. 

The Complaints Officer also advised that Adult Social Services received 204 compliments during the year which was an increase on the previous year, and Children’s Social Services recorded 82 compliments during the year from families and the Courts.  A summary of the compliments received was  appended to the report.  The Complaints Officer advised that responding to complaints in a timely manner would be raised again with managers at the May meeting in response to the drop in response times by Social Services for Adults.

Councillor Hilary McGuill commented that many of the complaints were due to a need for “better” communication with individuals and asked how the Service would seek to improve this.   The Chief Officer said the Service was not complacent and commented that partner agencies were also involved in service provision. He acknowledged the need to strive for improvement in communications with individuals.

Councillor Kevin Hughes commented that some of the complaints received seemed to be multiple complaints from the same person.  The Complaints Officer confirmed that this was not the case.

Councillor Marion Bateman queried the time limit for dealing with complaints.  The Complaints Officer explained that most would be addressed within 10 days although some complaints took longer to resolve.

In response to a query from Councillor Ian Smith it was agreed that a list of all acronyms used in reports to the Committee would be provided to Members.

In response to a question from Councillor Hilary McGuill,  the Senior Manager Safeguarding and Commissioning confirmed that there were no  complaints received by Social Services for Children which had related to a Serious Case Review.  She commented on the learning from regional safeguarding reviews and cross border child practice reviews.

RESOLVED:

That the effectiveness of the complaints procedure with lessons being learnt to improve service provision be noted.