Agenda item

5.1  The Chair welcomed to the meeting Councillor Geoff Taylor, Cabinet Member Finance and Customer Services, Councillor Carole Williams, Cabinet Member for Employment, Skills and Human Resources, Tim Shields, Chief Executive, Bruce Deville, Head of Governance, Business Analysis & Complaints and Dan Paul, Head of Human Resources & Organisational Development (HR&OD) from London Borough of Hackney.

 

5.2  The performance review discussionis to establish the approach that should be taken by Overview and Scrutiny in conducting a review of the performance monitoring process for a service provision.

 

5.3  The session looked at some of the performance monitoring information used by the responsible officer and Executive Member which should help them to identify the risks, meet service users’ needs and carry out service improvements.

 

5.4  The first part of this discussion was to receive information from the Executive Member and the responsible officer about their approach to performance monitoring for the service areas selected.  The areas covered at the meeting were Complaints and HR.

 

5.5  The second part would be to consider how scrutiny can carry out an effective role in performance review.  In this discussion the Commission would be recommending where the list of over-arching indicators - that represent the health of the Council - should be monitored. 

 

Complaints

 

5.6  The main points from the presentation for Complaints were:

1.  The complaints data is available on Covalent and all Councillors have access to the information recorded which is real time data.

2.  The number of complaints open is 306 and the number of complaints overdue is 163. 

3.  The Cabinet Member explained in his meetings with the Complaints team they look behind the data recorded to analyse for trends or specific issues.  This is for all the cases open and overdue.

4.  The complaints categories are:

·  Housing repairs

·  Housing management

·  Benefits and housing needs

·  Parking.

 

5.  The overdue cases are mainly concentrated in housing repairs, benefits and housing needs.

6.  The Cabinet Member demonstrated to members of the commission how they could click on the overdue tab and view the complaints outstanding by category.  It was noted the current complaints categories did not provide sufficient detailed to give a good breakdown.  The Council is in the process of looking for a new system that would enable them to manipulate the data in more detail.

7.  The Cabinet Member for Finance and Customer Services differentiate his area of responsibility in relation to Complaints.  His responsibility was the complaints system not the service area carrying out the complaint.  For example the Cabinet Member was not responsible for the housing repairs service but his role was to ensure the council had a functioning and efficient complaints system.

8.  The Complaints team do not just count the number of complaints and pass the information to the service area the team will analyse the data to understand the specific issues or trends.

9.  The categories for complaints used are too broad and officers have been looking at the system Camden used that allows better analysis of the complaints data.  The view was this system would be beneficial to service areas like housing repairs to improve their performance.

10.  Last summer the number of complaints related to housing was at a reasonable level.  Later in the year the number of complaints increased significantly.  This was due to a number of staff exiting the team which resulted in a spike in overdue cases.

11.  The Council’s aim is to understand the core issue related to the volume of housing repair complaints to systematically resolve the issue.  The data collated will be used to improve the service. 

12.  The Council recognises there is a culture issue linked to the number of complaints.  That needs to be taken into consideration too.  Without detailed information to interrogate the data they are unable to identify the core issue. 

13.  The Council is expecting to have a better analysis system in place for the complaints system in the next few weeks.

14.  As part of new ways of working residents will be asked to rate the service either while the operative is still in the property or shortly after.  This will enable the Council to capture information about the service being provided more promptly.

15.  There is currently a backlog of complaints for housing services and they will be getting more resources to help reduce the backlog.

16.  It was pointed out when complaints are resolved effectively it can encourage people to use the complaints system to get issues resolved.

17.  It was highlighted that the Benefits and Housing Need service areas have a high volume of overdue complaints.  This is linked to welfare reform where a number of people are unhappy with their assessments.  The Council has noticed that appeals can masquerade as a complaint - but it rare that the assessment made is incorrect.  As a consequence a number of people are using the complaints system to appeal.  The question was posed to Members if this should this be classified as a ‘complaint’. 

18.  The senior officers in the Benefits and Housing Needs service go through all the complaints to consider if the complaint is a genuine compliant and to really understand what is coming through in relation to appeals that masquerade as a complaint.

19.  It was noted a number of statistics are used to improve services they are:

·  Efficiency of complaints service

·  Time it takes to complete a complaint

·  The culture does this information show in the indicators?

 

HR

5.7  The main points from the presentation for HR were:

1.  Two indictors were provided for update.  One of the indicators was agency spend.  The Commission was informed the Council has decided this is not the best way to monitor agency spend and are currently having conversations about how to monitor this.  The view was the indicators did not provide a strategy about how to manage agency spend.

2.  The second indicator was staff sickness.  This is a 12 month rolling average which is currently 6.36 and varies between 6.5 and 7.5.  The target is 8.4 and this will be reduced next year.  This indicator has remained stable and is equal to the private sector.  It was noted the sickness rate is below target and below other local authorities.

 

5.8  Questions, Discussions and Answers

 

(i)  Members enquired about the definition of a ‘complaint’.  Members asked if a complaint need to state the word complaint.

 

In response Members were advised the information did not need to mention the word complaint to be treated as a complaint but they do review each case.  The council has noticed a number of people are unhappy with their decision about their benefit allocation and therefore using the complaints system to appeal.  This is not technically a complaint but a person unhappy with the decision made.  The assessment is if the process has been followed correctly this should not be treated as a complaint but as an appeal.

 

(ii)  Members enquired if the Councillors enquiry system was part of the complaint system.

 

The Cabinet Members for Finance and Customer Services confirmed it was.

 

(iii)  Members understanding was for the complaints system they look at the time it takes to complete a complaint and the number of overdue complaints in the different service areas.  Member enquired if the issues surrounding culture showed up in the indicators Hackney Council is using for performance monitoring?

 

In response Members were informed the Council is moving towards using the same system as Camden Council.  This will allow them to do better analysis.  The Council’s current system has 5 broad headings which does not enable the council to do the analysis required.  The new system will analyse the data in a larger number of categories and this will enable them to drill down to specific issues.  In summary it’s the efficiency of the complaints service and the effectiveness of learning from the complaints data.

 

(iv)  Members commented complaints are an important indicator of council service.  They provide useful data about the performance of a service and can pinpoint specific issues. 

 

(v)  Members raised concern about accountability and how the system enabled the council to drive better performance.  Members were also concerned about the performance of housing repairs and wanted to know when they would reach acceptable levels. 

 

The Cabinet Member for Finance and Customer Services advised in his first meeting with officers, he enquired about the work by the housing repair service to improve their response to complaints.  He was informed the service area had recruited temporary staff to deal with the backlog of complaints.  The key concern is not necessarily the number of complaints but identifying the pattern in the complaints data to identify and manage the problem effectively.  The Council’s view is the system used by Camden Council will help them to draw out this information in an automated way.

 

The Chief Executive from LBH explained when they moved the service back in-house the service was not performing well.  By the summer they had reduced the number of complaints.  At the end of November 2016 a large number of staff left the team. 

 

The Chief Executive explained the Head of service for the complaints team provides him with an update each month.  He makes enquires about the action plan from the Group Director.  Normally the Group Director is aware and has an action plan in place.

 

In the beginning they struggled to detect the issue but now the Council is slowly being able to feed back information about complaints to their contractors etc.  In addition the Chief Executive advised through close working with ICT they are looking to bring in a mobile data tools.  The aim is to encourage customers to give an assessment quickly either in the property of straight after.  Analysis of this data will give them the information they need to challenge contractors regarding performance and to identify specific issues.  For complaints they try to find out the drivers behind the complaint such as: contractor performance, employee performance etc. 

 

The Head of Governance, Business Analysis & Complaints explained the system will be a business intelligence tool that will sit over the Council’s existing systems and pull the data together to determine the problems and provide analysis right down to individuals.  This has been in place for a few weeks and they are starting to see some good results.

 

Acceptable levels are expected to be achieved by the end of May 2017.

 

(vi)  In response to Members asking if HR monitored staff turnover. 

 

The Head of HR and OD advised HR operates a suite of indicators that look at the workforce including staff turnover.  The information is available on Covalent.

 

(vii)  In response to Member’s discussions about the agency spend indicator being an example of an indicator that was being reviewed and modified for improvement.

 

The Cabinet Member for Employment, Skills and Human Resources informed the Commission they were changing this indicator to consider how to address agency spend.  It was explained there are a number of factors that will feed into the monitoring of this spend and some of these factors are beyond the Council’s control e.g. the cost of housing in London.

 

(viii)  Members asked for a list of the indicators reported by HR.

 

The Cabinet Member for Employment, Skills and Human Resources advised they can provide a list to the Commission.

 

ACTION

Cabinet Member for Employment, Skills and Human Resources to provide a list of the indicators reported by HR.

 

(ix)  Members made the following enquires:

a)  How verbal complaints are recorded?

b)  How the Council identifies complaints?

c)  How the Council monitors the process of complaint recording?

d)  The trend over the last 3 years for agency spend, has it been more or less and how the Council compares to its neighbouring boroughs?

 

The Group Director Finance and Corporate Resources explained in 2008-2010 the council had a higher level of agency spend than currently.  The trend of agency spend is downward.

 

There are a number of factors that impact on agency spend such as changes to the organisation; the way the organisation is configured; the diversity of the workforce and whether the role is competitive in comparison to the private sector.  If there is high staff turn over the Council needs to understand why.  The officer pointed out the introduction of IR35 will have an impact and this will be implemented in April 2017.  It was noted some service areas have an action plan in place to reduce agency spend but the market place can impact on this.

 

In response to the question about comparing spend to other Boroughs.  In general LBH is comparable to neighbouring local authorities.  It is quite difficult to do a pure comparison of agency staff spend, for example if the Council tried to compare itself to Camden Council it would be difficult because this council has a number of externally operated services. 

 

The Head of HR and OD advised agency staff spend is reducing in LBH while in other boroughs it is increasing.

 

(x)  Members enquired if the Council monitors softer qualitative data such as staff surveys.  Members asked if the Council had knowledge of staff views about how change management is managed.

 

The Cabinet Member for Employment, Skills and Human Resources advised they do a staff survey.

 

The Head of HR and OD advised a staff survey was completed in 2016 and they are currently analyzing the results.  It was noted that particular question was asked in the survey.

 

(xi)  Members enquired how the system would operate if all staff were monitoring complaints for their own area and there was no central function.

 

The Cabinet Member for Finance and Customer Services explained having the knowledge about complaints across the organisation was useful. 

 

(xii)  Members enquired about the process that would be followed for a complaint where a resident telephoned another service / departments and did not get through to the Complaints Team.  Members queried if the complaint would be recorded.

 

The Cabinet Member for Finance and Customer Services advised if citizens telephoned another council and did not get put through to the complaints team, the service would not be made aware of the complaint.  Notwithstanding this all service areas have the ability to log a complaint on the system.

 

(xiii)  Members enquired what percentage of complaints related to telephone.

 

The Head of Governance, Business Analysis and Complaints informed the Commission approximately 15% of complaints are by the telephone.  The majority of complaints logged come in online.  This has been the trend for the last 2-3 years.

 

(xiv)  Members enquired if HR was meeting all the set targets they are recording for the service area.

 

The Head of HR and OD advised in general they are meeting their targets.  The measure that is in slow decline is the percentage of the workforce that live in the borough.  Generally the HR targets set are relative to the local community for example the BME target is reflective of the community.

 

(xv)  Members commented they are interested in getting a sense of the health of the organisation and would fully expect complaints to be an indicator in the over-arching list.  Members asked HR to reflect on their indicators and pick 2 indicators that would best reflect the health of the service.

 

In response Members were informed it would be staff sickness and the percentage of top earners.

 

(xvi)  Members enquired how often the service areas reviewed their indicators to change them as required or consider if they were fit for purpose.

 

The Head of Governance and Business Analysis and Complaints advised they review them annually.  The new business intelligence system will provide managers with real time data so they can act to turn around performance more quickly.

 

(xvii)  Members enquired if the Council has a budget for consultant fees.

 

The Group Director of Finance and Corporate Resources informed Members they have a marginal rate they pay to agencies.

 

The Head of HR and OD added spend on agency staff is a delicate balance; if the spend is minimised too much agencies will send their staff to other organisations.  So they have to get the balance right.