Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were submitted on behalf of Councillors Bill, Hodgkins and O’Shea with the following substitutions authorised in accordance with council procedure rule 10:

Councillor Ladkin for Councillor O’Shea

Councillor Mullaney for Councillor Hodgkins

Councillor Sheppard-Bools for Councillor Bill.

It was moved by Councillor Bray, seconded by Councillor Cartwright and

RESOLVED – the minutes of the meeting held on 1 September be approved and signed by the chairman.

No interests were declared.

To provide the annual corporate complaints report.

Members were provided with an annual update on corporate complaints including complaints that had been investigated by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman and the Housing Ombudsman.

Members were pleased to see the very low number of complaints about customer services, given the number of customers that they deal with on the telephone and via email daily. The relatively low number of complaints about the refuse & recycling service was also highlighted, given the number of bins collected each week. The number of complaints about the planning service were also noted, but it was acknowledged that the majority of these were dissatisfaction with a decision rather than alleged service faults.

In response to a question in relation to the persistent and unreasonable complainant behaviour policy, it was explained that there were various tests before this could be applied to an individual and it did not relate only to the number of complaints submitted.

Members requested further information on the two investigations undertaken by the Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman where no fault was found, and requested graphs for all headline figures highlighted in the report to show changes over the past few years. It was also requested that future reports also contain the number of formal compliments received.

RESOLVED –

(i)            The report be noted;

(ii)          The information requested be provided to members;

(iii)         Future reports include the number of formal compliments received.

The committee was updated on progress towards adopting a new code of conduct following publication of a model code of conduct by the Local Government Association earlier this year. It was reported that a working group of Leicestershire monitoring officers had been working together to agree minor changes to the model code with the intention that it could be adopted by all tiers of local government in Leicestershire as recommended by the Committee on Standards in Public Life.

It was noted that group leaders via the Member Development Group had supported recommending the locally amended code of conduct for adoption and it would therefore be brought to the next meeting of this committee before being submitted to Council. It was anticipated that any new code would be in place on 1 April 2022.

To consider the passing of a resolution under Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972 excluding the public from the undermentioned item of business on the grounds that it involves the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in paragraphs 1 and 10 of Schedule 12A of the 1972 Act.

On the motion of Councillor Webber-Jones seconded by Councillor Allen, it was

RESOLVED – in accordance with section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the public be excluded from the following item of business on the grounds that it involves the disclosure of exempt information as defined in paragraphs 1 and 10 of Part I of Schedule 12A of that Act.

It was reported that the investigation in to complaints 2020/31 and 2020/32 had concluded with a recommendation that no breach of the code of conduct had occurred. In accordance with the procedure, the chairman and one independent person had been consulted and agreed with the recommendation and as such, the matter was now closed.