Issue - meetings

To consider a report of the Senior Assurance Officer.

Councillors received a report of the Senior Assurance Officer Complaints, which provided the committee with the opportunity to scrutinise the Annual Complaints report for 2021/22.

Councillors discussed the issues arising from the report and discussion covered the following areas:

·       Level of code of conduct complaints against councillors and the costs involved in dealing with these

·       How the council dealt with vexatious complaints

·       Historic issues and financial remedies relating to SEN delays or children out of education

·       Benchmarking undertaken with similar councils

·       Useful learning undertaken from complaints.

The Chairman noted the following outcomes from the discussion:

·       A request for information on the cost to the council of councillor code of conduct complaints.  Councillors also wanted to understand why the council was receiving higher levels of complaints

·       The Complaints Team to consider if there was a more robust way of dealing with vexatious complaints.

On behalf of the committee, the Chairman thanked all officers in the Complaints Team for their work.