Raising awareness of the complaints process

A well-publicised and accessible complaints process is essential in fostering an organisational culture which is fair and open to challenge and learning. The regulations say information about arrangements for dealing with complaints must be made available to the public.

We have published two focus reports covering access to services and learning from complaints about human rights. Both reports contain important learning for councils and other organisations when developing and delivering complaints processes.

Councils should ensure that all staff and third party commissioned services (e.g. care providers) are aware of the complaints policy and how people can raise complaints. To achieve this training in accepting complaints could be covered as part of any customer service training. Information about the council’s complaints process could also be shared with new staff as part of their induction and commissioned services as part of the procurement process.

Councils could also include information about complaints services as part of induction and training processes for elected members. This will help elected members support local residents when they have cause for complaint, ensuring their concerns are dealt with under the most appropriate process. Providing elected members with information about complaints in their areas may also help them scrutinise local services and identify areas for learning and improvement.

Information about the complaints process should be provided when people start to receive a service. Councils could also include information about the complaints process wherever it provides information about available services online and in places where people receive services.

Information about the complaints process may be made available where members of the public are asked to provide feedback on services. This gives the public an opportunity to raise individual concerns with the council at the same time as providing general feedback. It also demonstrates to the public that the council is open to considering complaints alongside seeking wider feedback about services.

Making reasonable adjustments

The Equality Act 2010 says organisations exercising public functions must anticipate the needs of people with disabilities who may need to access services and make appropriate reasonable adjustments.

The government has published guidance on accessible communications. This says organisations can reduce the need for producing a range of accessible information about its services by designing initial documents with accessibility in mind. This is a cost and time-efficient way of making information instantly accessible for a larger number of people. For example, councils should aim to:

• write in plain language;
• provide information as concisely as possible; and
• design information to be as legible as possible, for example using a minimum 14-point text size.

Councils may make information about complaints and challenging decisions available in alternative formats such as Easy Read, large print, languages other than English and British Sign Language.

Councils should ensure complainants can raise concerns and challenge decisions through a range of channels. Many councils have prioritised the use of online systems as the primary means of receiving complaints from the public. This is cost effective and may meet the needs of neurodiverse service users who may find it difficult to speak to someone over the telephone or face to face. However, online systems must be accessible, and councils should also ensure complainants can easily raise complaints through other channels, such as over the telephone or directly with those providing care services. The regulations say councils must accept complaints made orally.

Not every disability is visible and so it is important that councils provide individuals with the opportunity to request any reasonable adjustments when making a complaint.

Councils may consider including the following wording in complaint forms, along with a text box, to invite people to advise them of any reasonable adjustments they may need:

“We are committed to making sure the way we work does not put disabled people at a disadvantage and to meeting our legal obligations under the Equality Act 2010.

If you need any help or support to use our service, please let us know and we will consider what changes we can make.”

If a complaint is made over the telephone, the council should ask whether the person needs any help or support to use the service.

Once the council has agreed to make reasonable adjustments it should record these clearly so other officers in the same service area can see this. This means the complainant does not have to repeatedly request for adjustments to be made. If a council has agreed reasonable adjustments with a person in relation to services they receive, it should, where possible, adopt those adjustments when responding to the person’s complaint. This means the person does not have to repeatedly request that adjustments are made.

In larger organisations, information about individuals may be held on different systems. This means that information about reasonable adjustments agreed by one service area may not be available to officers in another service. However, we would expect services to share information about any agreed reasonable adjustments when sharing other information about a social care complaint.

Information about any agreed reasonable adjustments should be held on file in line with the council’s data retention policies.