Council and councillors

To receive Report No. 147/2018 from the Director for Resources.

Report No. 147/2018 was received from the Director for Resources, the purpose of which was to provide an overview of the numbers of Compliments, Comments and Complaints received by Council over the last financial year.

Mr Della Rocca noted that it was important that there was a process in place through which people could log their complaints where they encountered problems.  The level of complaints received did not cause concern given the number of people that the Council interacted with.

During discussion the following points were noted:

1. There had been no complaints in the vexatious category;
2. Only complaints and compliments from members of the public were recorded, not those from Parish Councils;
3. There were a number of queries/issues/requests that are reported by Parish Councils, Councillors or by individuals themselves that are not recorded as complaints.  There was debate as to whether these should be recorded.  Officers to consider this issue further;
4. The policy would be reviewed in 2019 to address any issues;

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Mr G Conde left the meeting and did not return.

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5. There should be caution with changing the process for recording as it would make comparison with historic data difficult;
6. It was good to see the positive comments, but Members suggested that the report should include both positive and negative comments to make sure it was balanced; and
7. More details on the report from the ombudsman would be useful in future, particularly reasons for complaints upheld.

RESOLVED

Members NOTED the content of the Annual Compliments, Comments and Complaints report and provided feedback as above.