More than half of the government entities reviewed by the Cayman Islands Office of the Complaints Commissioner last year either have no process established for receiving residents complaints, or just didn’t bother to respond to OCC requests for information.
Complaints Commissioner John Epp. |
Of the 76 entities identified in the review; 34 said they had an internal complaints process in place, 17 said they did not, 25 others made no response.
‘It’s a pretty strong indicator of the priority given by some managers in government entities to customer service,’ said Complaints Commissioner John Epp.
An internal complaints process allows island residents to submit complaints against various government entities. Such a process requires those entities to respond within a specified period of time.
Mr. Epp said the more often a government office or entity deals with the public, the more formalised the complaint process should be.
Those entities that said they did not have an internal complaints process included: the Postal Service, the Planning Department, the Department of Public Works and the National Roads Authority.
Some of the entities that didn’t bother to respond to the OCC survey were: The Cayman Islands National Museum, the Customs Department, the Department of Youth and Sports, the Elections Office, and the Public Libraries.
Mr. Epp said departments that don’t have internal complaints processes are only hurting their own products and services.
‘Some businesses pay thousands of dollars for focus groups to hear what people think about programmes or initiatives,’ he said. ‘A wise manager…uses an internal complaints process as a research tool. If you have no organised…process, all of that valuable data is never collected.’
It is the Complaints Commissioner’s job to field and review similar complaints against government entities made by Caymanian residents. However, Mr. Epp said his office would be better used focusing on large, systemic issues as opposed to day-to-day operational complaints.
‘It’s not a very good use of resources for us to be dealing with customer service issues,’ he said.
The OCC plans to repeat its study this year.
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