Agenda item

The Monitoring Officer presented the annual complaint monitoring and service improvement report for 2024/25. 

It was noted that the increase in complaints year on year was consistent with national figures.  It was no surprise that the highest number of complaints received related to planning and housing, and it should be borne in mind that improvements to the housing service were still on-going.  It would, therefore, take some time to see a reduction in the number of housing complaints.  Recent recruitment to fill staff shortages in the planning service was starting to prove beneficial with regard to reducing planning related complaints.

The Assistant Director for Housing (Regulatory Landlord Services Unit) advised that additional staff resource had been brought in to handle complaints and that the backlog of complaints at the end of last year had now been cleared.  Feedback from tenants showed that changes to the housing service were now having a positive impact. 

The Monitoring Officer advised that the latest report from the Housing Ombudsman was expected later in July.  The annual performance report from the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman for 2024/25 was available and showed of the three complaints investigated, that one was upheld and there was a 100% satisfactory remedy rate.

Discussion and responses to questions from Councillors included the following points:

·        Regarding the Housing Action Plan referred to by the Assistant Director for Housing, it was agreed that this would be shared with the Housing Review Board;

·        It would have assisted the Scrutiny Committee to have had the Action Plan included with the report to enable Councillors to see what was now being done differently from previous years when the same actions had been repeated year on year;

·        It was noted that increased resources enabled problems to be addressed, which was preferable to encouraging residents to complain;

·        The Committee would welcome more information on how the service was being pro-active in preventing complaints being made in the first instance;

·        Regarding staff vacancies, the Assistant Director advised that a permanent member of staff had now been recruited to the post of Housing Performance Lead and would start at the beginning of August;

·        It was noted that a significant improvement had been made regarding anti-social behaviour complaints, following improvements as a result of an Ombudsman ruling in 2023;

·        It was noted that the highest dissatisfaction related to housing repairs and all complaint learning was fed into operational meetings with contractors;

·        A more detailed breakdown of the nature of complaints related to housing repairs would be helpful for Councillors, as the substance of complaints was variable;

·        It was queried whether complaints related to the length of time taken to start repairs, or the quality of the repair itself;

·        Regarding the checking of the quality of repairs, standard level repairs cannot be checked due to the volume undertaken.  Higher value repairs and major works are monitored closely by EDDC surveyors during and after completion of the repairs;

·        Regarding Councillors submitting enquiries on repairs, the Assistant Director advised that the Councillor enquiry form goes to the same officer each time for consistency of response;

·        The Council could be more proactive when communicating with tenants in the same location when repairs or works are being carried out on houses of the same age.  In response to this point, the Assistant Director advised that a whole house approach was preferable and that a report would be presented to the Housing Review Board regarding the holistic management of assets;

·        It was queried whether there was a target for response times.  The Monitoring Officer confirmed that the target for stage 1 complaints was 10 working days and for stage 2 complaints 20 working days;

·        The Councillor enquiry form was not for members of the public.  The public could engage with the Council in various other ways;

·        Regarding penalties for the contractors undertaking repairs, there was provision for compensation where repairs were sub-standard;

·        The Assistant Director advised that a software system for carrying out transactional surveys, which would allow for live feedback from tenants every time a repair was completed, had been considered last year but was too expensive. Other options were currently being considered;

·        It was suggested that more information on context and scale of the complaints would be helpful for Councillors eg. What was the ratio of service requests to complaints;

·        Concern was raised regarding the cost of tenants having to move out of their homes when repairs were being undertaken.  It was noted that trying to find suitable alternative accommodation could be difficult and could add to the length of time for repairs to be completed and to the cost of the repair.  It was queried whether this was something which the Housing Review Board already scrutinised or not;

·        There was discussion regarding whether the Scrutiny Committee could provide assistance to the Housing Review Board by way of a TaFF to scrutinise certain elements.  Concern was expressed that the Scrutiny Committee should not interfere with the work of another committee.  The feedback from the Peer Review supported the separation of the three scrutiny function committees.  It was noted that the Housing Review Board could meet more than four times per year if required, but that was a decision for that committee.

It was agreed that the annual complaint monitoring and service improvement report for 2024/25 be noted.