Importance of complaints in scrutiny

Complaints data, including information about individual complaints, provides important information about the overall culture and performance of an organisation.

The strategic oversight of complaints by the Member responsible for complaints is designed to promote effective organisational learning. This helps to ensure early warning signs are identified and acted upon potentially preventing the need for future actions such as serious case reviews or public inquiries into serious widespread issues, which are often first highlighted through complaints.

Data about complaint handling also forms a key part the Government’s best value standards for local authorities. The accompanying guidance says best value authorities “must demonstrate good governance, including a positive organisational culture, across all their functions and effective risk management”.

The guidance sets out the following measures of best value in relation to complaints:

• Lessons are learned from complaints.
• The authority has an effective and accessible complaints process and provides appropriate redress.

The guidance sets out the following as examples of poor practice:

• Disciplinary and complaints system are not deployed, leading to a sense that certain individuals can act improperly and with impunity.
• A high rate of upheld complaints made to the Ombudsman and a lack of an action plan(s) to address areas of concern.