Health and Community Services Complaints Lodged
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WRITTEN QUESTIONS
10th Assembly
19/07/2005
202. Health and Community Services Complaints Lodged
Ms Carney to MINISTER for Family and Community Services
QUESTION
Minister the 2003/2004 Health and Community Services Complaints Commission’s Annual Report lists on page 126 a table of the number of complaints against each government agency.
Your department of Family and Community Services has seen a steady increase in the number of complaints lodged with the Commission over the past 3 reported years:
2001/2002 26,
2002/2003 30,
2003/2004 48,
Minister the trend is obvious and the growth significant.
2. Why is the number of complaints going up.
3. What is being done to address this situation.
ANSWER
Answered on 07/02/2006
H:\EXEC\CLRK_ASS\WQST10thAssy\WQstsans\Aqsts202.doc
The Department of Health and Community Services have been unable to locate the data provided above at the source identified. Included for confirmation is a copy of the covering page of the Annual Report (Attachment A), page 126 (Attachment B) and Appendix 8 ‘Index of Tables’ (Attachment C, D).
1. Without access to the data it is not possible to respond to this question.
2. The comprehensive analysis of complaints data required to provide an absolute response in relation to this question would be extremely costly and difficult to manage due to the diverse work areas of my portfolio and established national reporting requirements.
3. The Department remains committed to working with the Ombudsman and Health and Community Services Complaints Commission to resolve complaints in a transparent and timely manner.
Attachment B
Attachment C
Attachment D
WRITTEN QUESTIONS
10th Assembly
19/07/2005
202. Health and Community Services Complaints Lodged
Ms Carney to MINISTER for Family and Community Services
QUESTION
Health and Community Services Complaints Lodged
Minister the 2003/2004 Health and Community Services Complaints Commission’s Annual Report lists on page 126 a table of the number of complaints against each government agency.
Your department of Family and Community Services has seen a steady increase in the number of complaints lodged with the Commission over the past 3 reported years:
2001/2002 26,
2002/2003 30,
2003/2004 48,
Minister the trend is obvious and the growth significant.
2. Why is the number of complaints going up.
3. What is being done to address this situation.
ANSWER
Answered on 07/02/2006
H:\EXEC\CLRK_ASS\WQST10thAssy\WQstsans\Aqsts202.doc
The Department of Health and Community Services have been unable to locate the data provided above at the source identified. Included for confirmation is a copy of the covering page of the Annual Report (Attachment A), page 126 (Attachment B) and Appendix 8 ‘Index of Tables’ (Attachment C, D).
1. Without access to the data it is not possible to respond to this question.
2. The comprehensive analysis of complaints data required to provide an absolute response in relation to this question would be extremely costly and difficult to manage due to the diverse work areas of my portfolio and established national reporting requirements.
- Without commenting on the source data, the Family and Children’s Services Program are anecdotally aware of a number of factors that may be contributing to the apparent increase in complaints:
Increasing client numbers – the Family and Children’s Services Program has seen a major increase in client numbers over the last three years, therefore any increase in complaints should be considered in conjunction with increasing client numbers.
Increasing transparency of government agencies – the Department of Health and Community Services has been working to provide clients with clear and transparent complaints processes, as information on how to complain becomes available, it should be expected that complaints will increase.
Improved processes for counting and responding to complaints – given the strong focus upon managing complaints, many work units have developed processes for recording complaints data more effectively and are therefore able to more accurately report on the number of complaints. In addition, the change to a Program structure assists individual Programs in measuring the number of complaints they have received.
3. The Department remains committed to working with the Ombudsman and Health and Community Services Complaints Commission to resolve complaints in a transparent and timely manner.
- Many of the factors outlined above as anecdotally contributing to the apparent increase in complaints received against the Department are related to improved processes and transparency of the agency, this should be supported as it indicates adherence to the basic tenets of good governance.
In analysing complaints data, caution should be used as many of the areas covered within the Family and Community Services portfolio are contentious and emotive and are therefore more likely to attract complaints.
Attachment B
Attachment C
Attachment D
Last updated: 04 Aug 2016