Issue - meetings

REPORT OF THE CUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGER

To receive a half year update on the 3Cs data from April to September 2021.

RESOLVED: That the Information Note entitled ‘Half Year Update on Comments, Compliments and Complaints (3C’s)’ be noted.

REASON FOR DECISION: To update the Committee on the first six months performance of 2021/22 regarding the Comments, Compliments and Complaints (3C’s) received for the Council and the contractors that provide services on the Council’s behalf.

The Leader of the Council confirmed that there had been articles published in the last issue of the Outlook magazine on reducing food waste.

The Leader of the Council presented the report entitled ‘Half Year Update on Comments, Compliments and Complaints (3C’s)’ and highlighted the following:

·         There had been an error with the logging of ‘Service Requests’ as ‘Comments’ from Urbaser staff and this explains the large growth in Comments to the Waste team and this issue has now been resolved.

·         The number of complaints surrounding Garden Waste Subscription was lower this year than previous years.

·         Compliments were received most for Carline and Green Space teams.

·         Complaints solved within 10 day target period was 2% down, but this was primarily due to the staffing shortages and given wider context this 2% drop is not too bad.

·         20 complaints had been escalated to Stage 2 – 15 of these were deemed not justified and one was sent to the Local Government Ombudsman, but was found to be outside of their remit.  

·         Service providers should be commended for the work they’ve continued to do in difficult circumstances.

The following Members asked questions:

·         Councillor David Levett

·         Councillor Claire Strong

In response to questions, the Leader of the Council advised:

·         A Service Request would be logged if a resident initially raises a missed bin collection, if this is then not done after the request was made it would become a complaint.

·         Comments can be difficult to identify and the Leader advised she would rather these be mis-recorded than not recorded at all.

·         If a comment is clearly framed as a complaint, it would be recorded as such even if it was the first time contact over a missed bin collection.

·         Some service requests following a missed bin collection do not automatically include a complaint as there is no explicit dissatisfaction.

·         Missed bin collections had always been logged as a service request, unless there was an explicit expression of complaint.

Councillor Mike Hughson proposed and Councillor Claire Strong seconded and, following a vote, it was:

RESOLVED: That the Information Note entitled ‘Half Year Update on Comments, Compliments and Complaints (3C’s)’ be noted.

REASON FOR DECISION: To update the Committee on the first six months performance of 2021/22 regarding the Comments, Compliments and Complaints (3C’s) received for the Council and the contractors that provide services on the Council’s behalf.