THREE of the 10 States departments have failed to make progress in dealing with customer feedback and complaints, according to the latest Scrutiny Committee report. Scrutiny chairman Jean Pritchard said there had been an encouraging commitment to varying degrees by departments since the committee’s Complaints Review had been published in August 2005.
But Public Services, Social Security and Education were three departments which had struggled to make improvements.
Public Services has committed to introduce a formal policy for Guernsey Water, but had not done so by the time of the latest update.
Deputy Pritchard said that Social Security had stated it had no intention of introducing a formal policy.
‘The Social Security Department stated that it welcomed feedback on all of its policies and operations, but that the review panel found no supporting evidence of this.
‘Since the completion of the review, the department has not made many amendments to its policies and procedures concerning complaints, which, aside from statutory obligations, remain unwritten and informal.’
Scrutiny’s review report found that Education had detailed procedures for investigating complaints against individual teachers but only informal undocumented procedures for complaints about the department itself.
‘The department informed the committee in April 2006 that it was at that time finalising a revised receiving-and-managing complaints procedure, which incorporated an appeals procedure.
‘It stated that it would be finalising this by the end of that academic year.’
However, the department has yet to respond to a request for an update and it is not known whether it has introduced a formal policy and procedure.
The States will be asked later this month to note the progress made since Scrutiny’s report of the Complaints Review and to direct the Policy Council to take a proactive lead in encouraging a culture for dealing with feedback, especially complaints.
The review also makes recommendations at a corporate and departmental level.
It also recommends that the appropriate actions should be included under priority 12 of the Government Business Plan.
n Health and Social Services is currently in discussion with its counterpart in Jersey regarding the handling of complaints from patients and relatives.
It has been proposed that the two jurisdictions should provide each other with a source of independent review for any complaints which cannot be satisfactorily resolved internally.
A spokesman for HSSD said: ‘These talks are in their very early stages and once any final decision has been reached, a further statement will be released.’
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