About our courses

Our online courses share good practice on accepting, investigating and deciding complaints for councils and social care providers. Responding to complaints effectively and proportionately supports continuous improvements in organisations and improved customer satisfaction.

Who is it for?

This course is for staff and managers who are responsible for investigating and making decisions about complaints across the wide range of services delivered by local authorities, care providers and other organisations we receive complaints about.

Course content

The training covers the principles and expectations for effective complaint handling, including our Complaint Handling Code for local authorities and best practice procedures for care providers.

Delivered by experienced Ombudsman investigators, delegates will benefit from more than 50 years of expertise in complaint investigation, decision-making, and remedy recommendations.

We offer four versions of the course:

• Standard course (for local authorities and other public bodies)
• Standard course (for care providers)
• Statutory Adult Social Care complaints (for local authorities)
• Statutory Children's services complaints (for local authorities) 

Key details

• Delivery: Online via MS Teams
• Duration: Four and a half hours (plus half an hour if booking an additional module)
• Participants: Between 5 to 12 per course
• Cost: £650 for the standard courses or £700 for the courses covering statutory complaints about either children’s or adults services.

What will delegates learn?

• Appreciating people’s experience of raising complaints
• Understanding expectations for complaint handling in different services
• Defining and analysing complaints
• Investigating complaints and evaluating information
• Preventing and managing unreasonable interactions with complainants
• Reaching sound decisions and communicating them effectively
• Writing effective apologies and remedying complaints
• Using learning from complaints to drive service improvements

What happens on the day?

We deliver our interactive training to delegates via Microsoft Teams. The training includes group discussions and exercises in online breakout rooms to give delegates a chance to share learning.

Delegates will follow a single complaint from receipt to decision, working together to understand the complaint, review a decision letter, and decide on an appropriate remedy.

Additionally, delegates will discuss managing challenging interactions with complainants and identifying organisational issues that may lead to faults. Our experienced trainers will also share their own insights throughout the session, drawing on examples of real complaints they have looked at, and our view of best practice.

How to book our training

Email training@lgo.org.uk to ask about our availability and booking process.

Our terms and conditions are available to download from this page along with a flyer for the course that can be used to promote the training within your organisation.