Extract from LB Havering annual letter 2005

Your Council's complaints procedure and handling of complaints

I have already referred to the very positive steps the Council has taken to resolve some complaints. I also note that response times to our enquiries, on average 27.8 days, have continued to improve and, with the very occasional exception, have been within our targets. We are now more frequently using electronic communication with your complaints staff to speed matters further, so further improvements might be expected. Nevertheless, you will also wish to know that we recognise it can be difficult for some councils to meet the current 21 day target and provide good quality, comprehensive responses to our enquiries. So, from 1 July 2005, we are revising this target to 28 days.

The Council's manager responsible for dealing with complaints from my office attended our seminar for link officers in February 2005 and I trust that he found this useful. My Assistant Ombudsman has visited Romford to discuss complaints with your staff, and I know that further presentations to officers and Members are planned. I recognise that Council officers with whom my staff deal often have demanding workloads, and I appreciate the efforts they make to deal with our investigations. I hope that the relationship between our two offices continue to improve.