Public Participation & Culture Cabinet Member – Minutes – 17 January 2019
2 (2) CUSTOMER COMPLAINTS AND COMMENTS POLICY – The Director: Governance and Partnerships submitted a report seeking approval for a new Customer Complaints and Comments Policy.
The council was committed to being a customer-centred organisation; this was a cornerstone of its ambition of being #BestCouncil for its residents. The development of a more sophisticated capability for managing customer feedback, encompassing complaints and comments, supported organisational learning and enabled continuous improvement.
The council’s organisational goal was to be a sustainable, enabling, commercial and progressive council. This included being outward looking and highly engaged. All councils should have a process for customers to make complaints and provide feedback which was easy to understand and access and effective for all parties.
A dedicated customer contact resource was established in 2017 as part of the council’s transformational restructure to create a single council-wide view of customer complaints and feedback. This has enabled a step-change in the ability to co-ordinate complaints and comments, share intelligence and act on lessons learned.
A key output from this development was a new Customer Complaints and Comments Policy. The policy was informed by practice experience obtained over the last year at service and council-wide coordinator level, restorative principles and guidance from the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman. The report set out the benefits of the policy for both the customer and the council.
Resolved – That the Customer Complaints and Comments Policy be approved.