Executive summary

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman is responsible for dealing with complaints about local councils in England. The Ombudsman has issued a Complaint Handling Code to local councils which sets out expectations in relation to complaint handling and the oversight of complaint handling process.

This guide sets out our view on good practice in relation to the oversight of complaints and complaint handling performance within organisations. This is relevant to complaints covered by our Complaint Handling Code but is also relevant to complaints about adult social care and children’s services covered by statutory complaints processes.

For complaints systems to work properly it is vital that senior people are involved who take responsibility for making changes, sometimes at a policy level, when something goes wrong. Effective complaints systems ensure the right people are involved at the right stage.

To ensure effective governance, we believe the three Statutory Officers should be aware of and engaged with complaint oversight and management at a strategic level, and are able to intervene effectively at the right time where needed.

Learning from complaints should be a fundamental part of an organisation’s risk management and audit functions and should inform contracting arrangements. Organisations should have effective reporting mechanisms to ensure the right people have oversight of complaint handling performance. 

This approach supports the Code of Practice for Statutory Officers issued by Solace, CIPFA and LLG.

Good complaint handling requires effective procedures and well-trained staff alongside a positive complaints culture that enables those procedures to achieve maximum impact. Our Complaint Handling Code sets out what an organisation should do to effectively manage complaints.

Organisations should embrace complaints through increased transparency, accessibility, and complaint handling governance. Demonstrating individuals are at the heart of service delivery improves the relationship between the council and local people and good complaint handling is central to that.

High performing organisations view complaints as opportunities. There are many benefits to be gained from having an effective and efficient complaints process:

• Good complaint handling promotes a positive relationship between an organisation and local people and improves perceptions locally, regionally and nationally.
• Complaints allow an issue to be resolved before it becomes worse. Those issues not resolved promptly can take significant resource and time to remedy.
• Involvement in complaint resolution develops staff ownership, decision-making and engagement.
• Complaints provide senior staff with essential insight into day-to-day operations, allowing them to assess effectiveness and drive a positive complaint handling culture.
• Data collected about complaints can be analysed and used to inform key business decisions to drive improvement in service provision.