Representatives and consent

Having a representative can be helpful for many people, not just people who experience difficulties in communicating. A representative could be a friend or family member or a professional such as an advocate or solicitor. Organisations should ensure a representative has consent or other lawful basis for acting on another individual’s behalf.

Consent to act on someone else’s behalf is not permanent and once given it can be withdrawn. Complaint handlers should therefore keep consent under review during their consideration of the complaint.

Organisations should not place restrictions on the actions of representatives unless there are good reasons for doing so. For example, if a person wants to attend a meeting with a friend or family member for support the organisation should not prevent that person from speaking in the meeting without good reason (e.g there are concerns about the representative exerting coercive control over the person complaining).

Representatives should be expected to act with the best interests of the complainant in mind. Our guidance on managing unreasonable actions contains information about how an organisation can respond to concerns about the actions of a representative.