Lead Member – Cllr Alex Wagner, Deputy Leader and Portfolio Holder for Communities

Lead Officer – Tim Collard, Service Director – Legal, Governance and Planning

RESOLVED:

3.1 That Cabinet support the application of the Code from 1st April 2026, focusing on compliance whilst acknowledging that resource challenges may lead to some practical challenges and delays and noting that action may be taken by the Ombudsman in respect of any failures to implement the Code in full from the new financial year.

3.2 That Cabinet acknowledges that collective effort will be required across the Council to ensure that complaints are prioritised appropriately.

3.3 That Cabinet support the requirement within the Code for Oversight and Scrutiny of the complaints handling processes and annual reporting to Elected Members (to include the Ombudsman’s annual letter and performance data).

The Deputy Leader explained that the Ombudsman has introduced a new complaints handling code for councils, with much more stringent recommendations. While not a legal requirement, councils were being strongly advised to have it in place by March 2026 and to start self-assessing against it from next year.  The new code set tougher targets, such as a 10-day response time for stage 1 complaints (with an additional 10 days for extensions), compared to the council’s current 30-day target. The council’s average was below 20 days, but the new code would require faster responses.

The Deputy Leader acknowledged that meeting the new standards would require significantly more resources. Given current financial constraints, the council could not commit extra resources to complaint handling, any additional resources would be better used to improve services and reduce complaints in the first place.

A “best endeavours” approach was proposed —self-assessing against the Ombudsman’s code and aiming to meet the new requirements as far as possible, while being honest about limitations due to lack of resources.

He reported that a self-assessment had found that the council fully complied with 27 elements of the code, partly complied with 23, and did not comply with 16. The council did not currently have a “positive complaint handling culture” and needed to improve in this area.  He emphasised the need for a culture change - seeing complaints as opportunities to learn and improve, and treating complainants with respect and positivity.

The Deputy Leader said the council would be transparent with members and the public about the challenges in meeting the new code. He reiterated that the aim was to improve complaint handling holistically, as part of a broader push to be a more open and customer-friendly council.

RESOLVED:

3.1 That Cabinet support the application of the Code from 1st April 2026, focusing on compliance whilst acknowledging that resource challenges may lead to some practical challenges and delays and noting that action may be taken by the Ombudsman in respect of any failures to implement the Code in full from the new financial year.

3.2 That Cabinet acknowledges that collective effort will be required across the Council to ensure that complaints are prioritised appropriately.

3.3 That Cabinet support the requirement within the Code for Oversight and Scrutiny of the complaints handling processes and annual reporting to Elected Members (to include the Ombudsman’s annual letter and performance data).