Issue - meetings

The Leader of the Council and the Chief Legal Officer (Monitoring Officer) submitted a joint report following the receipt of the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman’s (LGO) Annual Review for 2019/20, which gives the total number of complaints and enquiries received by the LGO with regard to Swindon Borough Council. The joint report also highlighted the annual summary of statistics on the complaints made to the LGO regarding the Authority for the year ended 31st March 2020.

Councillor Renard informed Cabinet of the Council’s performance in relation to some other unitary councils as well as the measures set out in the report that the Council was taking to ensure ongoing improvement to ensure the Authority addresses complaints effectively. The Leader highlighted the greater role that the Corporate Management Team would be taking while Councillor Brian Ford, Cabinet Member for Adults and Health, set out the steps officers in his service area had taken to address complaints.

Resolved: (1) That the LGO’s Annual Review 2019/20, including the summary of National Statistics and the trends across service areas in Swindon 2010-2020, attached at Appendix 1 to the main report be noted.

(2) That Cabinet’s thanks to all officers for their efforts in dealing with complaints effectively be recorded.

(3) That the Chief Executive, Corporate Directors, Directors and Heads of Service be authorised to take appropriate actions to continue to ensure that, where possible, complaints are resolved internally before such matters are referred to the LGO and that requests for information from the LGO are dealt with promptly.

The reasons for the decision and alternative options are as set out in the report to the meeting.