Council to act over rising criticism
Perth and Kinross Council is updating the way it handles complaints after an increase in the number of concerns expressed to its housing and community care department.
At the housing and communities committee meeting on Wednesday elected members agreed to improve its complaints procedure following increases in both stage one and stage two complaints. The latter category relates to incidents where the matter had to ber investigated beyond front line staff.
The department received 65 stage one complaints and 20 stage two complaints regarding social work services in 2016/17.
This is up from 46 complaints at stage one and 13 at stage two the previous year.
Most of the stage two complaints related to issues relating to people with learning disabilities, care at home, and the Perth City Team, as well as the quality of social work services provided by the council.
The local authority also received 521 non-social work stage one complaints and 50 stage two complaints, mostly regarding housing, finance and business support as well as council housing repairs and issues with council employees.
The committee heard of a number of suggested improvements and will now try to make sure all actions taken are specific to the complaint received and make sure the complaint is followed up appropriately.
The committee was told this could include working with health workers and care at home providers on joint complaints, monitoring the complaints procedure and sharing what they have learned from this.
New measures approved by the committee include more staff training on customer service standards, such as their responsibility to return calls and improving communication around council housing repairs.
The report also reminded staff in housing and community care of the importance of wearing their ID badges, as well as improving how well they park council-branded cars.
The committee’s elected members unanimously agreed to introduce these improvements to the way complaints are handled and followed up in housing and community care in an attempt to reduce the number of complaints over the coming year.