Issue - meetings

Following consideration of the officer report, appendices, and discussion, the Executive resolved to:

·       agree the adoption of the revised Complaints Policy from 1st April 2025.  

·       sign-off the 2023/24 Annual Feedback Report and approve publication of it to the council’s website. 

The Leader of the Council, Cllr Bill Revans, invited the Lead Member for Communities, Housing Revenue Account, Culture and Equalities and Diversity, Cllr Federica Smith-Roberts to introduce the item. Cllr Smith-Roberts explained the annual review of the complaints policy and the annual feedback report and how different directorates work in terms of complaints and compliments.

Cllr Smith-Roberts proceeded to hand over to Sara Cretney, Service Director Strategy & Performance, and Rebecca Martin, Strategic Manager – Customer Insight, Experience & Standards. They explained: the slight revisions to the new policy bringing it inline with the new Ombudsman Code of Practice; that the revisions involved changes to the timescale and adding remedy at an earlier stage; that the customer feedback report is an annual requirement; that complaints had increased by 30% in the first year of the Unitary authority; that the reasons for this increase included making the complaints process easier with the online self service option and some service requests submitted as complaints; that this data was being used to identify areas where things weren’t going well; and the factors around the large number of complaints in the SEND area and the ongoing work with the ombudsman to improve how those are dealt with.

The Leader of the Council invited comments from Committee Members and other Members present, with officers providing responses as appropriate. Questions and points raised included: the need for improvement in how SEND deals with complaints and improvement in the area of SEND, Inclusion, and Education overall; when repeated requests for areas such as a pothole repairs become complaints; the experience of Councillors receiving complaints in their inboxes and how to address that; and how Somerset Council compares to other councils.

The Leader of the Council concluded the discussion and proceeded to a vote on the recommendations, which were agreed unanimously.

Following consideration of the officer report, appendices, and discussion, the Executive resolved to:

·       agree the adoption of the revised Complaints Policy from 1st April 2025.  

·       sign-off the 2023/24 Annual Feedback Report and approve publication of it to the council’s website.