Agenda item

The Executive Director Core Services will submit a report presenting the Annual Review Letter for Barnsley MBC of the Local Government and Socal Care Ombudsman for 2020.

The Executive Director Core Services submitted a report presenting the Annual Review Letter for Barnsley MBC of the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman for 2020.  A copy of the letter was appended to the report.

The report, in outlining the background to the Ombudsman’s role, indicated that despite the Council’s best endeavours, there were times when it did something that resulted in a complaint.  Whilst the authority had a very robust complaints procedure there were times when this did not produce a satisfactory outcome for the complainant whose next recourse was to complain to the Ombudsman.

Part of the remit of this Committee outlined within the Terms of Reference was to ‘consider any payments in excess of £2000 or provide other benefits in cases of maladministration by the authority within the scope of Section 92 of the Local Government Act 2000’.  In this respect it was noted that one payment had been made in excess of this amount following a recommendation of the Ombudsman and a separate report on this would be presented to a subsequent meeting.

The report then went on to outline the key messages arising from the Ombudsman’s letter which related to delays in providing responses to several investigation enquiries and in completing the recommendations agreed.

Clearly the Council was disappointed with this performance and whilst a number of the cases were particularly complex and took a considerable amount of time to address, this level of performance was not acceptable and needed to improve.  The Council had, therefore, instigated a fundamental review of the process and supporting procedures in order to ensure that there was a full understanding of the reasons for those delays and to ensure better compliance in the future.  Details for the review being undertaken were outlined which was being supported by the Data Protection Officer.  In addition, the new processes and procedures would be audited once finalised and implemented.

The Executive Director Core Services felt that the Committee should be assured of the priority this review had and the commitment there was to ensure a significant improvement in performance.  This was a top priority and of critical importance.

It was also reported that the recent Annual Governance Review process had highlighted and recognised that there was scope to improve the timeliness of responses from the various services, but also to support that, there was a need to review the corporate processes and procedures.

The Committee would be kept informed of the progress and in due course would receive a presentation and report on the outcome.

Mr M Potter, Service Director Business Improvement, Human Resources and Communications also attended the meeting and briefly outlined the work being undertaken as part of that review, in working with colleagues within the IT Service and in developing a new performance management process and framework.  It was hoped that this would be implemented from mid-October and the Data Protection Officer had been instrumental in providing support and acting as ‘critical friend’.

In the ensuing discussion, the following matters were highlighted:

·         It was noted that the work on the review was well under way and further information would be provided to the Committee on when that was due to be concluded.  An Action Plan had been prepared and would be made available to Members of the Committee when the report on the review was submitted

·         It was suggested that a summary report should be provided detailing information provided by all external agencies on the performance of the authority (Planning Inspectorate, Health and Safety, information Commissioner etc.).  The Executive Director Core Services accepted that this would be a useful approach and arising out of this discussion he reported that the annual customer complaints report was to be submitted to Cabinet in the next few weeks.  This information together with the other information requested that the Council held could be collated to provide a report to the Committee on the performance of the Authority and this would then enable members to examine comparator information and useful benchmarking information.  The Service Director Business Improvement, Human Resources and Communications reported that the Annual Health and Safety report was currently being prepared for consideration by the Senior Management Team, Cabinet and this Committee.  This report would also inform the preparation of a composite performance report

·         Arising out of the above, the Head of Internal Audit, Anti-Fraud and Assurance commented that part of the Annual Governance Statement process was to explore all the opportunities for commenting on the Authority’s governance arrangements and some of those external reports mentioned would be considered in terms of the adequacy or otherwise of the governance arrangements.  Members were also reminded that they would be routinely receiving reports to on governance issues as part the Committee’s wider remit and thereby receive additional assurance around the broader activities and responsibilities of the Council

·         A request was made that further reports should include more detailed information on various aspects of the concerns expressed by the Ombudsman.  This would enable the Committee to have a greater understanding of where issues might be occurring/re-occurring and, thereby enable greater scrutiny to be made in relation to potential problem areas.  The Service Director Business Improvement, Human Resources and Communications stated that further information on the 6 cases highlighted within the letter would be provided but that these were not within one particular service area but from across the organisation.  In relation to the number of complaints in general, it was noted that a full breakdown would be provided within the annual report

·         Mr G Mills (External Auditor) briefly reported on the changes being introduced from 2021 which would result in the External Auditors picking up more of the work of the external regulators in more detail and linking to their own Value for Money conclusion work.  The National Audit Office had issued a new Audit Code and there was an expectation that the amount of work undertaken on Value for Money would be much more detailed and one of the three strands that external auditors were expected to pick up on was around the overall governance arrangements in place at public sector bodies.  Added to that, the Redmond Review Report published last week contained a number of recommendations on which a presentation was to be made at the Training/Awareness Session in October.  One of those recommendations was that external auditors link up more with external regulators to form a wider picture of governance arrangements within an organisation

RESOLVED:

(i)            That the report and Annual Letter of the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman be received and the response from the Council with regard to the fundamental review of the corporate processes that aim to ensure a higher level of compliance be noted; and

(ii)          That a further report be submitted following the completion of the review.