Agenda item

To present the report of the Director of Function (Council Business)/ Monitoring Officer.

The report of the Director of Function (Council Business)/Monitoring Officer incorporating the Annual Letter from the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales (PSOW) 2023/24 for the Isle of Anglesey Council was presented for the committee’s consideration. The Letter summarised the performance of the Council in relation to the service complaints received and their outcomes during 2023/24, cases involving the Ombudsman’s intervention and complaints made under the Code of Conduct for Members.

The headline messages in the Annual Letter were presented by the Director of Function (Council Business)/Monitoring Officer. Those showed that there had been an increase in the number of service complaints made to the PSOW although the number of investigations remained nil. Of the 38 complaints made about the Council in 2023/24, 9 or 24% related to its handling of complaints. There has also been increased reliance on intervention by the PSOW with 24% of complaints (10 complaints) having been resolved in this way which represents the highest level of intervention in Wales. While services deal with their own complaints, they rely on support, guidance and advice from the Corporate Information and Complaints Officer. This post has been vacant for some time and the vacancy is considered to be a contributory factor in the deterioration in complaints handling performance although the post is now being filled on a temporary basis by an agency appointment. Mitigating actions to provide resolutions had been identified and were set out in the report.

The following were points of discussion by the committee –

• The substance of the complaints made to the PSOW and whether they were serious
• Whether early intervention and resolution of 10 complaints by the PSOW is significant and reflects on the Council’s approach to complaints handling.
• Whether there are any indications of an improvement in complaints handling performance and response midway through 2024/25.

The committee was further advised as follows –

• That most of the complaints made to the PSOW were in relation to the Council’s normal day to day business and none were deemed serious enough to warrant an investigation by the PSOW.
• That the resolution of 10 complaints by early intervention and actions arranged by the PSOW shows that matters could have been put right early in the process had the Council taken the same approach to those complaints and acted accordingly.
• That an assessment of whether complaints are simply complaints or complaints about the way complaints have been dealt with has not been made based on the data made available to Scrutiny and the Executive because the scope of that information is narrow and the information has not been published.

It was resolved -

• To note and accept the Annual Letter from the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales (PSOW) for 2023/24.
• To authorise the Director of Function (Council Business)/Monitoring Officer to write to the PSOW to confirm that the Governance and Audit Committee has given formal consideration to her Annual Letter.
• To provide assurance that the Council will continue to monitor complaints thereby providing Members with the information required to scrutinise the Council’s performance.
• To continue supporting the Council’s development of its CRM system as a platform for processing complaints and providing “live” data on complaints handling performance, by service, for relevant officers, heads of service and the Leadership Team.

Additional action - the committee to be provided in due course with an update on the progress of the identified measures to provide resolutions.