Understanding the complaint 

In most cases, complainants will express their complaints clearly. However, organisations are encouraged to support complainants to express their complaints through well designed complaint forms. When dealing with statutory complaints, a complaint manager may have already produced a complaint statement with the complainant and provide a copy to the person investigating the complaint.

We believe it is good practice to speak to the complainant after reading their complaint. This will allow you to:

• Check your understanding of the issues they want you to investigate and under which complaint process you should consider it.
• Identify opportunities to resolve the complaint at the earliest opportunity.
• Manage the complainant’s expectations and answer any questions about the process.
• Hear the complainant’s view of what has gone wrong and how they say it has affected them.

It can be upsetting for some complainants to relive their complaints repeatedly throughout the complaints process. Complaint handlers should focus any discussions around areas where there is uncertainty. Where possible, complaint handlers should avoid asking complainants to repeatedly revisit events which may have caused them significant distress.

Defining the complaint

To support an effective investigation of the complaint, we believe it is good practice for complaint handlers to produce their own summary of the complaint.

Complaint handlers can do this even where a complaint statement has been agreed with a complainant. The complaint statement is a record of the complaint as made. The complaint handler’s summary sets out their understanding of the complaint in a way that supports effective consideration of matters that have been raised.

A complaint summary helps complaint handlers to pull together common issues under a single heading or headings and supports a focused and proportionate investigation of the complaint.

A complaint summary should be succinct and include:

• A summary of what has gone wrong from the complainant’s point of view.
• The impact the complainant says this has had on them.
• What the complainant would like the organisation to do to put things right.

We think the summary should be no more than two or three short paragraphs. Complaint handlers may consider using bullet points to break down parts of the complaint but lengthy lists can be unhelpful in staying focussing on the key issues being raised.

Complaint handlers should consider sharing this summary with the complainant at an early stage. This could be during a telephone call to discuss the complaint or in an acknowledgement letter.

Sharing the summary of the complaint with the complainant helps complaint handlers demonstrate that they have listened to and understood the complaint. It also provides the complainant with an opportunity to raise any concerns they may have around their complaint being misunderstood.

If the complainant disagrees with the complaint summary, complaint handlers should not spend time pursuing their agreement. The complaint handler should consider any feedback from the complainant and ensure they have established what is at the heart of the complaint, and what the complainant wants. Complaint handlers should let the complainant know they will proceed on that basis.

This prevents delays in the complaints process. Complainants will have the opportunity to raise concerns with how a complaint was interpreted and understood through later stages of a complaints process or with the Ombudsman.