The Cabinet approved the Annual Governance Statement 2023/24, the new Complaints Policy, and the Telford and Wrekin Climate Change Adaptation Plan.

Annual Governance Statement 2023/24

Councillor Richard Overton introduced the Annual Governance Statement 2023/24. Councillor Tim Nelson, Leader of the Conservative Group, asked:

When do you expect the historical orders to be signed off?

The Leader of the Council, Councillor Shaun Davies, confirmed that the audits for 2021/22 and 2022/23 had now been signed off.

New Complaint Handling Code and Combined Complaint Policy

Councillor Overton introduced the new complaint handling code and combined complaint policy. This new policy is a response to the introduction of the new complaint handling code by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, which covers all complaints made to councils, and the Housing Ombudsman Service, which specifically covers complaints from tenants about the councils that are their landlords.

The council takes complaint handling very seriously and welcomed the changes. They have decided to apply the policies in the new code to all complaints immediately, even though they are only required to apply the code to housing complaints. This means that the Council's target response time for Stage 1 complaints¹ will reduce from 15 to 10 working days. The performance of the complaints handling procedure is monitored monthly and published annually in a customer feedback report.

Councillor Nelson asked why the new code was being introduced retrospectively, and felt that the report should not have dwelt on the council's lack of resources. Councillor Bill Tomlinson, Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group, welcomed the new code but asked the Council to continue to provide non-digital means of communication and support for residents.

Councillor Davies confirmed that the retrospective implementation only applied to housing complaints, because Telford & Wrekin Council is not a stock holding council², so it does not have as many tenants as other councils. The rest of the code will not be mandatory until 2026 and he felt that the council's decision to implement it before this date showed that it was well ahead of the curve . He also reminded Councillor Tomlinson that there was support available for residents who were digitally excluded.

Telford and Wrekin Climate Change Adaptation Plan

Councillor Carolyn Healy introduced the Telford and Wrekin Climate Change Adaptation Plan. She reminded attendees that in 2019 the council had declared a climate emergency and set an ambitious target to reduce its own carbon emissions to net zero by 2030. The plan has been developed with the support of Environment Scrutiny Committee and all members of the council. Councillor Healy asked all councillors to sign up to the Mission Zero coalition. This is a cross party coalition of local authorities led by Chris Skidmore, a former Conservative MP, to show their commitment to tackling the climate emergency and to counter misinformation on the issue.

Councillor Kelly Middleton welcomed the report, but Councillor Nelson said he could not guarantee his group would give the plan their unconditional support. Councillor Tomlinson welcomed the report but asked the council to resolve the outstanding drainage issues in his ward. Councillor Davies said that lack of resources made it difficult to do all of the things the council would like to do to tackle climate change. He called for the Environment Agency to install flood defences in Ironbridge Gorge. He felt it was disingenuous of Councillor Nelson to suggest that the council could easily do more, saying that the council needed the government to provide support for climate action.