Alaveteli...but for complaints

[Alasdair Ross]

Hi,

Do you think Alaveteli could be deployed and configured to handle complaints?  If not, do you know of a suitable alternative?

The benefit of using Alaveteli (or similar) would be to track whether complaints are handled according to the published process/timelines, and prompt people to follow up and escalate.

I'm a resident in Lambeth and we have a real problem with the way the council manages housing.  WhatDoTheyKnow has been invaluable for surfacing underlying issues, and the council is generally good at responding via the platform.  It feels like the platform has enough authority that they don't want to be seen ignoring it.

This has got me thinking, given how bad the council is at responding to complaints, could we deploy the software to make complaints public and drive the council to provide responses according to their stated timeframes?

Lambeth are bad at assigning reference numbers to complaints sent via email, and the ticketing system they use internally is not exposed to users (i.e. people making complaints).

Complaints may contain personal data so it would be good to be able to redact information, or choose what is posted publicly.

Does anyone have any thoughts or advice?

Thanks,

-Alasdair

[Gareth Rees]

Hey Alasdair,

It could certainly be possible, but Alaveteli is very heavily designed around FOI. Code for Croatia did something similar for consumer complaints [1]. I've pinged a contact there to see what happened with it.

Resolver [2] also covers similar ground in the UK, albeit for consumers.

We also explored a similar theme in FixMyBlock [3].

I don't think we'd ever consider adding "complaints" to WhatDoTheyKnow for the reasons you mention (PII & redaction issues, and FOI is good in that there's legislation to back up the timelines etc). You could use it to make FOI requests for complaint handling data though, which might be a good first step for building understanding across a range of authorities.

Best,

Gareth

[1] https://www.mysociety.org/2017/10/10/croatia-gets-creative-with-alaveteli/
[2] https://www.resolver.co.uk/

[3] https://www.mysociety.org/2020/08/25/fixmyblock-a-toolkit-for-social-housing-tenants-in-tower-blocks/

[Alasdair Ross]

Hi Gareth,

Thanks very much for these links, they're very useful!  I've been using WDTK for FOI requests for evidence that will support complaints, but I don't know how common a practice that is.  I'll have another think about it - it might not even be possible to build a similar system for complaints.  Perhaps what I need to build is some combination of FixMyBlock, and some context sensitive guides.  e.g. "It looks like you're complaining about grounds maintenance not being done, so here's an example FOI request you can send that will provide evidence that the gardener never visited."

Needs some more thought....

Thanks again,

-Alasdair

[Gareth Rees]

Hey Alasdair,

I followed up with some people involved in Reklamacije. Here's what they said (slightly edited/paraphrased):

"Unfortunately, due to budget constraints, we couldn't continue it, and it had to be discontinued. There was a certain satisfaction with Reklamacije, but the reason for ending it was that the budget ran out. Also, I am pretty convinced that the guys tried to find someone to fund it but couldn't find anyone."

Hope that's useful.

Gareth

[Alasdair Ross]

Thanks very much!  Yes, that's helpful - it highlights the cost/complexity of this type of system..

I think I'm going to go down the route of linking to and providing advice, using analytics to track if those resources are used, and then see if it's worth going further and gathering requirements.

Thanks for your help!

-Alasdair

[Joanna Booth]

Hi Alasdair,

I would be very interested in this too. In Bristol, we have recently achieved a type of victory in finally making the council legally compliant in its complaint process. It hadn't been compliant for 8 years.

If we'd had some such process, there might have been greater transparency and accountability. 

If there's anything I can do to help to make this happen, I 'd be glad to.

Joanna

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Alaveteli Community" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to alaveteli-use...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/alaveteli-users/e4b7d062-649f-4eb0-816c-c49d86b6cc84n%40googlegroups.com.