Commissioning services 

It is common for public organisations to contract private organisations and others, such as charities, to provide services in their area. It is essential that complaint handling is at the heart of the commissioning process to ensure people accessing these services are able to raise concerns.

This guide sets out our view on good practice when commissioning services and managing complaints about contracted and commissioned services. 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. 

Where an organisation commissions a third party to provide services we consider the actions of the third party as if they were actions of the organisation. This means organisations keep responsibility for these third-party actions, including complaint handling, no matter what the arrangements are with that party. 

We think it is good practice for organisations to consider the potential impact of procuring services on the individual rights of the public, the risk of infringing those rights and identify steps to mitigate risk and ensure rights are respected. This supports organisations in ensuring commissioned services meet any legal obligations and mitigates the risk of serious issues in the treatment of individuals at a later stage.  

Organisations may consider: 

• the potential impact of outsourcing the service on the individual rights of the public (such as human rights and wider public law rights); 
• details of any training the third-party service provider gives to staff, including senior leaders, on customer service delivery and complaint handling; 
• feedback from existing service users and information about complaints received about the third-party service provider and how these were handled; and 
• information publicly available, about the third-party provider, from relevant bodies (such as regulators, ombudsmen and so on.); 

These matters do not need to be considered each time services are commissioned on an individual basis. They could be considered when the third-party provider is first commissioned or is added to a list of approved providers. This could then be regularly reviewed and updated.  

We refer to third-party commissioned services as “third-party providers” or “providers” throughout this guide. This covers any service or function of the organisation which has been outsourced to a third-party or where the organisation has formed a separate arm’s length organisation.