Agenda and minutes

There were no declarations of interest.

(a)  To agree the minutes of the meeting held on 24 March 2022

(b)   Matters Arising

The Minutes of the meeting held on 24 March 2022 were agreed and signed as a true record. There were no matters arising.

Report of the Director of Childrens Services

The Cabinet Member considered a report of the Director of Children’s Services which presented the Children’s Services Comments, Compliments and Complaints Annual Report 2021/22.

There is a statutory duty for the Council to have a system for receiving representations by, or on behalf of, children who use the social care services they provide or commission; and for the Council to produce an annual report about the operation of the complaints procedure.

The report detailed the comments, compliments and complaints for Children’s Services in 2021/22. It highlighted the themes that emerged from them and the learning and service improvements that have resulted from the feedback received. The Children’s Services Complaints and Representations Annual Report 2021/22 was attached at Appendix 1 of the report and the Council’s Complaints Handling Guidance was attached at Appendix II.

The report indicated that between 1 April 2021 and 31 March 2022, there were 177 statutory complaints, 18 corporate complaints and 40 informal complaints received.

A total of 23 complaints were made by children and young people themselves or from an advocate in 2021/22, the remainder were from adults. Two main themes continue to be identified by the complaints made by and on behalf of users in 2021/22; (i) issues regarding poor communication with users; and (ii) concerns about the standards of service provided.

A record high 502 compliments were received in 2021/22 compared with 445 in the previous year. Themes from compliments were predominantly around the good standard of practice received from individual social workers and the overall standard of service received from teams. It was not currently possible to distinguish between compliments from children and young people themselves, or carers, or staff without manually going through every compliment. A selection of compliments from children and young people and families were included in the appendix.

Members welcomed the report and thanked officers for the work undertaken. They commented that it was reassuring that young people’s voices were being heard and that they would continue to be heard.

RESOLVED that, the Cabinet Member approves publication of the annual report in relation to complaints and representations in Children’s Services in 2021/22.

There are no outstanding issues

There were no outstanding issues.

There were no other items of business.