Meeting documents

            Meeting: Standards Committee (County Hall, Durham - Committee Room 1b - 15/02/2007 10:00:00 AM)

                  Item: A3 Corporate Complaints Procedure

         

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Internal control report Corporate Complaints


INTRODUCTION

1. In accordance with the County Council's annual Internal Audit Plan, we have carried out a review of the Corporate Complaints system.

2. In carrying out the audit, the time and assistance afforded by Bill McKibbin, Allison Mallabar, and the Standards Committee was greatly appreciated.


OBJECTIVES

3. The overall objectives of our reviews are to provide a risk based assessment of the systems in place in order to form an opinion as to whether they are robust and provide an adequate basis for effective control. The detailed objectives for this audit, as agreed with managers, were to ensure that;

SCOPE

4. The review undertaken by Internal Audit forms part of the overall assurance process now required by the Chief Executive and the Leader for inclusion within the statement on internal control which is included as part of the Authority’s Statement of Accounts. In order to be in a position to best inform this process, the audit includes an increasing emphasis upon issues of a non-financial nature.

5. The report is intended to present to management the observations and conclusions of the audit. Wherever possible the observations and recommendations have been discussed with members of staff and their views taken into account.


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Policy & Procedure

6. The Authority has an up to date complaints policy and procedure and there are reasonable methods available for prompting updates to it. We were also satisfied that both Corporate and Service complaint officers are in post or, where relevant, replacement posts have been provisionally agreed i.e. for Adult & Community and Children's Services.

7. The Corporate policy is the only one in place, except where statutory responsibilities are covered or additional procedures are required e.g. School place appeals. However, issues highlighted by our testing suggest that a further circulation, including updating of local documentation and wider public communication of the policy, is necessary.

Recording Complaints

8. The Corporate policy states that Services are responsible for “making sure that all complaints received are properly recorded ..”. Our testing suggests that where complaints cannot be resolved immediately Services are identifying them as formal complaints. However, a series of minor gaps in the evidence on complaint files suggests officers would benefit from a re-iteration of the stages required and evidence expected.

9. Where complaints are resolved immediately, the policy requires that Services provide written confirmation of this to the complainant. Our testing confirmed that these are not being captured and reported by the current complaints process but we understand and accept that formally recording and reporting at this level would be very administratively cumbersome.

Processing Complaints

10. The Authority employs very tight timescales for complaint receipt and response and we were very pleased to find that in the vast majority of cases these were being met. However, based on our review of the guidance and testing, we identified isolated examples of poor practice that should be addressed and six areas where we think the standards could be extended.

Reporting & Review

11. Standards Committee and Chief Officers receive complaints information on a regular basis. Overall this is very useful and highlights the central role members currently take in the monitoring of complaints. However, the Committee expressed an interest in more systematic and comprehensive management information and we have identified a series of way in which this could, with Service assistance, be provided.

12. Within Services, we noted some good practice in complaints handling, reporting, and use of outcomes. However, CPA is raising the expectation that across all Services we can evidence this good practice. In this environment, each Service should re-assess how it demonstrates that it is reviewing complaints received, its handling of them, and what impact this has had on developing services.

OBSERVATIONS, RISKS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

13. Our observations together with the associated risk(s) are detailed in the action plan accompanying this report. For each area where observations are made, a recommendation and priority for action is attached.

14. We have categorised the importance of our recommendations as follows:


CONCLUSION

15. Our review has highlighted one high and seven medium priority issues considered significant enough for inclusion within this report. A further issue has been identified as low priority and is shown in the report to indicate where overall control could be improved.

16. Our opinion, based upon the number and potential impact of the observations made, is that the system is adequately controlled. Identified complaints are usually handled appropriately, within current time standards, and as such its key objectives are being met.

17. Our recommendations focus on further developing the process (and tightening application of the policy), improving current management information, and highlighting future challenges to the system.



Action plan for implementation Corporate Complaints

TO VIEW TABLES OF COMPLAINTS PLEASE CLICK ON PDF ATTACHMENT OR REFER TO HARD COPIES LOCATED IN CORPORATE SERVICES AND THE COUNTY RECORD OFFICE

Attachments

 Complaints.draftreport.v2.pdf