Date: 18 January 2010
Our Ref: 5690940
Your Ref:
Enquiries: John Hail
Phone: 020 7974 5644
Fax: 020 7974 5589
E-mail: complaints@camden.gov.uk
Web site: www.camden.gov.uk/complaints
Dear Resident,
I am writing to give my decision on the complaint you have made on appeal to the Chief Executive concerning the process for issuing replacement Key Fobs at Camden Town District Housing Office (DHO).
Your complaint
You are concerned that procedures for the issuing/replacement of key fobs at Camden Town DHO are not suitably robust to promote security for residents who’s blocks are accessible to people via such key fobs.
You are also concerned that statements given, relating to how a fob was given to your friend on 21 October 2009, are contradictory, conflicting and inaccurate.
My investigation
I have carried out an investigation of your complaint. The investigation included an assessment of correspondence supplied by you and the DHO.
I have taken the Human Rights Act 1998 into account during my investigation of your complaint.
The history of your complaint
On 21 October 2009 Mr Gregory XXXX visited Camden Town DHO, on your behalf, in order to obtain a replacement key fob as your old one was broken. When he delivered the new fob to you Mr XXXX reported that he had not been asked to show any identification and had been allowed to retain the old broken fob.
At 16:50 on 21 October 2009 you sent an e-mail to Mr Peter Swingler (Head of the Central Complaints Unit), Mr Gary McGovern (of the Metropolitan Police), Councillor Roger Robinson and cc'ed to five other council staff.
At 19:18 on 21 October 2009 Councillor Robinson e-mailed Ms Vicky Morris, Ward Housing Manager, seeking information.
Ms Raychel Aldred, Senior Customers Services Officer replied to Councillor Robinson, on Ms Morris' behalf, at 16:16 on 22 October 2009. You were copied into Ms Aldred's response.
At 22:39 on 22 October 2009 you obtained an e-mailed statement from Mr XXXX and forward this to eleven e-mail addresses (including that of Ms Aldred) at 12:44 on 23 October 2009.
At 17:31 on 23 October 2009 Ms Aldred replied that she would look into the matter further.
At 22:41 on 8 November 2009 you sought an update from Ms Aldred. The number of e-mail addresses this was sent to (including Ms Aldred's) was twelve.
At 11:36 on 11 November 2009 Ms Aldred replied that your enquiry was now being dealt with as a Freedom of information (FOI) request.
At 15:49 on 11 November 2009 you responded that your FOI request was a separate matter and asked nine specific questions relating to your key fob communications. The number of e-mail addresses included in this had now grown to thirteen.
At 10:37 on 13 November 2009 you again sought an update from Ms Aldred.
Ms Aldred responded to your e-mails at 15:27 on 13 November 2009.
At 06:48 on 16 November 2009 you submitted a formal complaint. Your e-mail was sent to the complaints@camden.gov.uk mailbox and to Mr Swingler. It was also copied to Councillor Robinson and Mr XXXX.
As Mr Swinger was not in the office that day and as I was monitoring the complaints@camden.gov.uk mailbox I picked up your e-mail at 10:57 on 16 November 2009. As there was no record of any Local Resolution stage complaint investigation I forwarded your e-mail to the Housing Complaints Team.
At 09:29 on 19 November 2009 you e-mailed Mr Swingler seeking an acknowledgement of your previous e-mail.
At 10:39 on 20 November 2009 I e-mailed you to advise what I had done with your e-mail of 16 November 2009.
At 12:58 on 24 November 2009 Ms Sylvia Clark, Senior Customer Services Officer, responded to your formal complaint. She also advised you of your right of appeal to Mr Swingler.
At 14:20 on 24 November 2009 you e-mailed Mr Stewart Holmes, of the Central Complaints Unit, to have your complaint raised to the appeal stage.
At 06:44 on 25 November 2009 you submitted a more detailed appeal request. This asked eight specific questions relating to the complaints procedure.
At 10:03 on 7 December 2009 you e-mailed Mr Trevor Chambers, of the Housing Complaints Unit, seeking progress with your appeal. This e-mail was also sent to five other mailboxes.
At 11:30 on 7 December 2009 Mr Chambers replied that your complaint needed to be registered as an appeal.
You then telephoned the Central Complaints Unit and spoke to me. Following our conversation you e-mailed me at 12:43 on 7 December 2009.
I logged your appeal on to our complaints monitoring system at 16:46 on 7 December 2009.
I sent you an electronic acknowledgement of your complaint at 16:51 on 7 December 2009.
At 09:12 on 9 December 2009 you e-mail Mr Swingler, Mr Holmes and me, copying in four other e-mail addresses, and seeking clarification of the correct reference number for your complaint.
On 9 December 2009 (time not known) Mr Swingler confirmed the number as 5690940.
At 19:03 on 9 December 2009 you e-mailed Ms Helen Roy, of the Housing Complaints Team, stating that she had told you on 23 November 2009 that 5690940 was the reference number for your complaint about Refuse/Estate Parking issues.
At 09:26 on 10 December 2009 Mr Chambers apologised for any confusion over the correct reference numbers for your various complaints.
I was allocated the investigation of your key fob complaint on 5 January 2010.
Your local resolution stage complaint
Your e-mail of 16 November 2009 set out the events of 21 October 2009 and then made five statements:
1. You believe that correct procedures were not followed.
2. The officers' recollections of events cannot be considered reliable.
3. Ms Aldred's previous statement was incorrect and misleading.
4. Mr XXXX is willing to testify in court to his version of events and can produce a supporting witness.
5. CCTV footage could be used to verify the case.
You then stated three specific expectations:
1. Security procedures are urgently reviewed.
2. You receive a written apology for officers trying to cover up these events.
3. Disciplinary action should be considered against certain council staff.
Ms Clark's response to your complaint (e-mail of 24 November 2009) was exceedingly brief. She felt she could not add anything to the e-mailed comments previously given by Ms Aldred in her communications of 13 November 2009.
Your review stage complaint
In addition to the points mentioned above, your formal request for a review of your complaint asked eight questions:
1. What is the reference of this complaint?
2. Who is currently investigating this complaint?
3. When would you expect to receive a reply to your appeal?
4. What stage of the Corporate Complaints Process is your complaint at?
5. Will you get an official and formal response giving the name of the person who has dealt with it?
6. What is the official procedure for making a complaint against Camden Council?
7. What are the guidelines for each stage of the complaints process?
8. What is the role of Ms Sylvia Clark within the complaints department and why did she respond to an e-mail you had sent to Peter Swingler?
My decision
Although it may seem like working backwards I will first address each of your eight most recent questions. I will do this as it will then allow me to turn my attention to the substantive points of your complaint at the conclusion of this letter, which should aid clarity.
The reference number for this complaint is definitely, and without a shadow of a doubt 5690940. You will recall we had a bit of a dispute over reference numbers back in November 2009. I am sticking to my guns over what I told you then about which reference numbers belong to which complaints or FOI requests. There was some confusion that crept in over which numbers were for what. This was in part due to you having a few complaints on the go all at once, plus a couple of FOI requests that overlapped with the subject of the complaints. You were also very busy e-mailing a range of people about all of these and many of the recipients of your e-mails were getting communications on a number of different issues. Within the Central Complaints Unit we had to take the unusual step of setting up two folders for the e-mails you were copying or sending to us even before we had any active role in any of your complaints. We had one for the fob issue and one for the heating issue, but even then it was not always easy to establish which e-mail trail belonged to which issue as the trails crossed over now and then.
To be fair to Ms Roy I don't think she intended to say that reference number 5690940 related to your complaint about *******. Indeed, from the copy of the e-mail trail I hold I fear that the error may have been yours. Ms Roy e-mailed you at 13:54 on 23 November 2009, quoting reference number 5690940 and saying that I had asked her to log the complaint. In your e-mail to her of 19:03 on 9 December 2009 you state “On 23-11-2009 I made an official complaint regarding the ******** inside the estate. You promptly provided me with this reference number: 5690940. If you read Ms Roy's e-mail of 13:54 on 23 November 2009 you will see that she says that your complaint was received on 20 November 2009. Thus it could not have been the ******* complaint as you did not even submit that until three days later. Clearly MS Roy was referring to your key fob complaint, which I sent on to the qualityteam.housing@camden.gov.uk mailbox some time after 10:57 on 16 November 2009.
At the time of your question, as to who was investigating your complaint, no investigator had been allocated to your case. Thus at that time the answer would have had to be that your complaint was with the Central Complaints Unit for investigation. But since 5 January 2010 I have been investigating your complaint.
The advertised date for response to your appeal is 18 January 2010, but as you were advised on 5 January our current workload has made compliance with timescales much more challenging of late. However, I am please to say I have been just able to stick within timescale in this case.
This is the Review Stage of the Corporate Complaints Process. It is the final stage of our internal process, being in effect an appeal to the Chief Executive. Your right of appeal to this stage is via the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) as stated in the final paragraph of this letter.
I enclose a ˜How to complaint about a council service?" leaflet for your reference. I also supply a link to our complaints procedure on our website. http://www.camden.gov.uk/ccm/navigation/council-and-democracy/having-you...
I also enclose a copy of the Complaint Management Manual. This is intended to be an internal management document but may be of interest to you in view of your request for guidelines for each stage of the complaints process.
Ms Clark is not part of the Central Complaints Unit. She is a Senior Customer Services Officer within Housing Management. She responded to your e-mail to Mr Swingler because I sent it on to the Housing Complaints Team for investigation as a Local Resolution stage complaint. I did this because up to that point your communications had not been dealt with in accordance with the corporate complaint procedure nor did they appear upon the I-casework complaints management system. It fell to Ms Clark to produce a ˜Local Resolution stage" response, giving a right of appeal to the Chief Executive/Central Complaints Unit. I would have preferred her response of 24 November 2009 to have properly followed the ˜house style" of the complaints process, but at least it did allow us to take your complaint to the Review stage.
I will now turn to the points you raised in your e-mail of 16 November 2009. I agree with you that the procedures for issuing the replacement fob to Mr XXXX were not properly followed on 21 October 2009. There is some mitigation for this. At the time a major project was taking place to upgrade electronic entry fobs thus there were special arrangements to simplify the replacement of fobs to residents. Standard letters had been sent out and I have seen sight of such a letter relating to Levita House. It seems that the officer who dealt with Mr XXXX believed he had issued a replacement fob on the basis of that project and had seen the appropriate letter. But I must conclude that he was mistaken in this. Mr XXXX has confirmed to me that he did not have such a letter. In any case the standard letter instructs residents to bring identification with them, and Mr XXXX has maintained throughout that he was not asked for any ID.
Given the evidence before me and the balance of probability, I must conclude that the issuing officer's recollections of events may well be in error on this point.
I believe that the simplified system for replacement of fobs to those residents living in blocks, where the above mentioned project was taking place, may explain Ms Aldred's initial statement that no fob had been issued to Mr XXXX that day. She would have consulted the "key receipt book" in the expectation that all keys issued would be recorded in it. She was incorrect in her expectation, something that her later communications with you makes clear.
I note Mr XXXX's willingness to appear in court to swear to the veracity of his account of events on 21 October 2009. There is no need for this. I am happy to accept Mr XXXX's word as to the truthfulness of his recollections of these events. Nor would I expect a court to consider it a prudent use of court time to examine such a deviation from process over the issuing of a key fob; particularly where no actual harm has resulted.
Nor do I feel it is worth trying to recover CCTV footage of the incident at this point. As I have already said I am happy to accept Mr XXXX's word in this matter.
Rather than the security procedures for the issuing of key fobs needing an urgent review, as you suggest, I feel the system already in place is appropriate. What we do need to do is ensure that the existing system is being fully adhered to at all times. On 21 October 2009 the system was in place and functioning, I have been provided with a copy if the relevant page from the "key receipt book" and see that other fobs were issued that day in proper compliance with procedure. Thus I conclude that the way the fob was issued to Mr XXXX was due to a simple error rather than a systemic failure.
I do not believe that there is evidence of an intentional attempt to "cover up" the events of 21 October 2009. I rather believe that what we are dealing with here is an honest error by one officer, compounded by an initial assumption by another that the system in place was 100% reliable. No system is ever 100% reliable, as these events prove. I formally apologise for the failure of compliance with the established procedure for the issuing of replacement fobs on this occasion. As I have previously mentioned, I believe that the special exercise for replacement of fobs to other blocks may have undermined the standard process in this instance and I will draw this to the attention of senior managers so that greater care can be taken in any future such exercise.
Be assured that those officers involved in the issuing of this fob and the initial response to Councillor Robinson's Members Enquiry will be reminded of the importance of full compliance with council policy, procedures and verification/investigative process. Matters of staff discipline remain internal to the council, which takes a corporate responsibility for the performance and behaviour of its staff while performing their official duties. Thus it is for the appropriate managers to decide upon any internal remedial action. I refer you to the formal apology given above as being the council's acceptance of fault.
This matter has now been subject to copious e-mail correspondence, two formal complaint investigations, a Members Enquiry and at least one Freedom of Information request. I would like to restore a sense of perspective on this incident. I appreciate that your concerns are not only over the events of 21 October 2009 but encompass a wider issue of general security via access to communal areas of block via key fobs. However, the remit of my investigation is limited to the issuing of this particular fob on that specific day. I agree that proper process was not followed regarding this fob. While the issuing officer may have believed he had seen a standard letter allowing him to issue a fob without entry within the "key receipt book," he must have become confused with some other customer, as Mr XXXX is very clear that he did not have such a letter. Further; even if such a letter had been presented it would still have required the officer to view suitable identification before issuing a fob. Again, Mr XXXX is clear that he was not asked to provide such identification. Thus the only reasonable conclusion to draw is that this particular fob was not issued in compliance with existing policy and procedure. Whether this is an example of a wider problem is something you are testing/have tested by reference to the FOI process, which I am not party to.
Regarding this specific fob I do not feel that there was any detrimental effect from the now acknowledged breach of policy and/or process. While Mr XXXX was not asked to provide ID (as he should have been) he was nevertheless a legitimate recipient of the fob, as he was acting on your behalf. Thus no actual security breach occurred even though Mr XXXX's bona fidies were not tested. I understand the argument of the "what if" scenario but feel I should restrict my considerations, within the terms of the Corporate Complaints Process, to actual rather than hypothetical events.
It is disappointing that it was not immediately realised that this fob had been issued without record being made in the correct ledger. This caused incorrect information to be given to Councillor Robinson, which he then advised you of. Thus the initial opportunity to offer apologies for the oversight was missed, which I am sure had they been then forthcoming, along with confirmation that staff had been reminded to keep to correct procedures, would have been acceptable to any reasonable minded person.
I hope that the efforts I have now taken in investigating this incident have now addressed this to your satisfaction.
In conclusion, I uphold your complaint.
Your right to complain to the Local Government Ombudsman
I hope that the detailed consideration given to your complaint will reassure you about the council's willingness to review its actions independently. If you are dissatisfied, the Local Government Ombudsman may be able to consider your complaints. His address is:
Local Government Ombudsman
PO Box 4771
Coventry
CV4 0EH
Phone: 0845 602 1983
Yours sincerely
John Hail
Complaints investigation officer
Read the orignal complaint here.