Issue - meetings

A report was presented by Angela Esslinger, Complaints and Appeals Manager, providing complaints and customer feedback on statutory social care complaints for children and young people and adults for 2017/18.

It was reported that 540 adult social care complaints had been received in 2017/18, which was an increase of 13% from the previous year.  However, there was nearly twice as many compliments, with a total of 1009 being received in 2017/18.  In addition, the Stage 0 complaints, which were those which had been resolved early in the process, had almost doubled compared to last year and complaints to the Local Government Ombudsman had seen a slight increase this year.

Details of the Joint Complaints Protocol involving Unitary Authorities, Clinical Commissioning Groups and Health Trusts in Lancashire were provided to the Cabinet Committee.

It was reported that 265 statutory complaints had been received in relation to children's social care, which was an overall increase by just over 20% from the previous year. No Stage 3 Review Panels had been held in 2017/18. The increase in Stage 0 complaints had risen from 60 in 2016/17 to 150 in 2017/18.  There had been a decrease in Local Government Ombudsman children's social care complaints of 50% (from 47 in 2016/17 to 23 in 2017/18).

In relation to non-statutory children's social care complaints, these dropped by just over 6%, from 93 in 2016/17 to 87 in 2017/18 and social work practice was the most common complaint category – the same as for statutory complaints.

The Committee noted there had been a welcome rise in compliments for children's social care; a total of 148 compliments were received in 2017/18 compared to 58 in 2016/17, due to the incorporation of compliments from other children and young people's services.

It was reported that complaints represented just under 2 per cent of all active adult social care and children's social care cases throughout Lancashire in 2017/18.

Details of identified learning for all complaints were set out in the report.

The Committee were informed that a compliment had been received from the Local Government Ombudsman in relation to the way a specific joint complaint across health and social care had been handled.

Resolved:  That the Cabinet Committee on Performance Improvement note the statutory social care complaints annual report for children and young people and adults for 2017/18, acknowledging the associated learning.