Adult Social Care Complaints, Reviews and Appeals: A good practice guide for local authorities
Part 9
Putting things right and learning from complaints
You can find more information about good practice in putting things right for individual complainants and using learning from complaints to support service improvements in our good practice guide for complaint managers.
Scrutiny and oversight
The regulations require councils to prepare an annual report about complaints received. The report must:
- specify the number of complaints the council received;
- specify the number of complaints which it decided were “well-founded” (upheld);
- specify the number of complaints which it has been informed have been referred to the LGSCO; and
- summarise:
- the subject matter of the complaints received;
- any matters of general importance arising out of those complaints, or the way in which the complaints were handled;
- and matters where action has been or is to be taken to improve services as a consequence of those complaints.
The regulations say the annual report must cover the 12 months ending with the 31st of March.
The regulations say the report must be made available to anyone who requests it.
In addition to reporting on quantitative complaints data, councils may also consider carrying out periodic reviews of complaint responses to check they meet expected standards. Any learning and feedback from these reviews could be included in the annual report.
Councils may also consider collecting and analysing data on the protected characteristics of people who complain. This will allow councils to check whether certain groups of people may face barriers in raising complaints and what may be done to address this.
We think it is good practice to share the annual report with locally elected Members. This promotes transparency and supports good governance and the scrutiny of local services.
Councils should also consider sharing the annual report, and regular updates on complaints with local scrutiny functions. Councils are structured in different ways, and it is for each council to decide how best to facilitate this. Our guide for members responsible for complaints provides more detail on this.