Karin Lane introduced the report and provided additional information in response to questions from members of the committee:

·         The Member Enquiry data in the report relates just to those that are logged through the in-box held by the corporate Complaints Team

·         The number of missed refuse collections is collected and monitored by the waste services team

·         Penalty charge notices (PCNs) are dealt with through a separate appeals procedure

·         The “report it” icon is used for service failures and these are actioned by the appropriate service

·         The Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) report and letter is available via a link on the council’s website the LGO website

·         Karin Lane regularly meets with departmental management teams and provides monthly monitoring reports to action any trends to trends and identify any action that is required by the department

Members had had differing experiences of using the Member Enquiries in-box compared to making direct contact with officers and agreed that this choice should continue to be made available to councillors.

Following discussion, the Chair suggested that it would be helpful to add a note to the table in Appendix E to make it clear that many member enquiries are also sent direct to officers an d the table does therefore not reflect the level of activity by ward councillors. He suggested renaming the report in future – complaints management and member enquiries – and more consistency in the presentation of data (i.e. so that the tables in sections 3 and 5 would both show percentage change).

Members were impressed with he information in Appendix F showing action taken by parking services in response to analysis of trends in complaints made.

Karin Lane undertook to seek comparative data from other local authorities on how much is paid out in compensation to complainants.

RESOLVED: to note the report.