Agenda item

This report is to provide Members with an overview of appeals by individuals for a Hearing or where the Local Government Ombudsman has been involved.

The clerk, in his role of co-ordinator of Stage 3 Hearing requests and Ombudsman activity, provided a the Sub-Committee with a résumé of Ombudsman activity during the previous year as well as outlining some of the changes and impact (as the procedure evolved) of the complaints process as it moved from Stage 2 to Stage 3.  Members were reminded that it was after Adjudication and Review changed from being a Committee (which sat several times a year) to a Sub-Committee (which had no fixed meeting schedule and might only meet once or twice a year) that the presentation of complaints statistics could not continue in its informal format and that Members asked for more formal reporting of complaints issues with more of an emphasis on trends and how the process was being managed.  Part of the process of change involved changes to the Stage 3 format and the addition of a “screening” stage ahead of any full hearing (modelled on that used by the Standards Committee) was put in place and came into effect during 2010.

Since its introduction, the Initial Assessment Panel (IAP) comprising two Councillors (one of whom was the Chair of the Sub-Committee) and a clerk (and in one instance, a planning lawyer), had met on five occasions.  During the same period Homes in Havering had had two Stage 3 Hearings and there had been an introductory tenancy Hearing.  Of the five meetings, only one was referred to a Hearing, but that did not take place as the Service found that it was able to satisfactorily address the complainant’s issues.  One complaint was currently still open.  The IAP had already convened twice and a third meeting was needed to ensure that an Independent Investigation could be conducted and a report put before it.

Members asked why there were only two Members and were informed that this had been considered to be the minimum to ensure flexibility in arranging the panel meetings, which were designed to be informal.  There was some concern that two Members might have difficulty in resolving any disagreement and the clerk agreed to address this concern.  In addition, Members asked for clarification about the concept of “congruency” and the clerk explained that in the past it had too often the case that a complaint, by the time it came before Councillors, was not the same as the one raised – and addressed by officers – at stages 1 and 2.  This meant that Members were being asked to adjudicate on issues which might not have come before officers.

In order to ensure that Councillors’ time was used wisely, the complaints process had been modified in a way which required complainants to identify which parts of their original complaint had not been fully addressed, tell the Council what effect this had had on them and say what it was they wanted the Council to do to put matters right for them.  This had for a number of years been applied at the transition between stages 2 and 3, but had now been cascaded down to the Stage 1 / 2 as well as the Stage 2 /3 transition.

Congruency was a test the IAP applied to see whether the complaint was essentially the same as that at Stage 1 and whether the officer responses sent to the complainant at stages 1 and 2 had in fact addressed the complaint issues fully.  The fact that, to date, only one recommendation for a Stage 3 hearing had been reached by an IAP from the five considered showed that it was a useful step in ensuring that only cases with merit came before a full Hearing.

Members’ attention was then drawn to the Ombudsman statistics for the year 2011/12.  The clerk explained that the final numbers had been skewed towards the end of the year when 11 residents chose to approach the Ombudsman about a certain development in their neighbourhood.  The Ombudsman had taken the view that he needed to investigate both the Planning element and the Housing aspect.  As complaints were then being recorded against each service area, for one issue, the records had 22 “investigations”.  The clerk added that he had just been informed that this complaint had been closed a week or so previously – with no fault by either service being found.  He also added that the records for 2012/13 had been changed to record Ombudsman activity differently.

Members noted the report and recommended that:

1.                  The IAP be reconstituted to have three Members and

2.                  The documents should be reviewed and a full written procedure of the Stage 3 element of the complaints process be provided to it at its next meeting.

3.                  Confirmation to be provided that Councillor “decisions” at Stage 3 were not simply “recommendations” but had some force.