If you’re involved in the UK public sector to any degree then you have to have a keen sense of how to handle complaints. This is less a piece of careers advice and more a simple statement of fact.
By its very nature, the UK public sector is almost always likely to be in the pressurised position of having to deliver vital and complex services against a backdrop of underfunding. The sectors of the general public which rely on public services – which is to say virtually all parts of the population at one time or another – are pretty much bound to take successful delivery of those services as little more than the bare minimum that should be expected (i.e. if you dial 999, somebody responds via the appropriate emergency service), while being angered and/or distressed by any failure to deliver.
Given this relationship between the public sector and the service users, a robust and effective process for handling complaints is a vital component of successful service delivery, rather than simply a reactive corrective to any failure. In fact, without a process of this kind being in place, the framework of trust, accountability and transparency that a successful public sector depends upon won’t be able to thrive.
The fact that public service complaints in the cost of living crisis have risen sharply is something any service user would probably assume on an instinctive level. Statistics back up this feeling, however.
According to research published by Demos – a cross party independent think-tank – the number of complaints made to key public services such as benefits, prisons, higher education and the health service, rose from 309,758 in 2016-17 to 425,624 in 2023-24. Only during the highly atypical period of the COVID-19 pandemic did the number of complaints drop sharply, making it likely that, without the pandemic interrupting, the rise in complaints fielded by public sector bodies would have been even greater.
Breaking the figures down reveals that written complaints to the NHS rose by 20% to 241,922, while the same metric doubled at the Department for Work and Pensions (120,509) and went up by 94% in prisons and the probation service (4,575). Over the same time-frame, written complaints in the higher education sector were up by 69% to 3,137, whilst levels stayed broadly flat within local government and social care.
This last finding is particularly interesting when viewed through the prism of the 2022-23 Review of Local Government Complaints, published by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman. The report presents a summary and review of the complaints investigated by the ombudsman during the course of the year.
It highlights details such as the fact that more complaints were received and upheld about Education and Children’s Services than any other area, and that, as a result of complaints received across the board, 2,412 recommendations for improved services were made, focussing on aspects such as policy change, procedure review and staff training.
The report also includes useful sections on the impact that a single complaint can have on future service delivery in the public sector, provided it has been handled correctly. Examples include:
• Leeds City Council allowing a private care provider to put dual contracts in place after a family member was placed in a care home. As a result, the family were left having to pay the difference between the council’s rate and the private provider’s rate.Following the complaint – Leeds Council agreed to revise the contract arrangements being utilised and end the practice of dual contract provision.
• Delays in the delivery of Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans at North Yorkshire County Council, caused by problems in recruiting educational psychologists. As a result, the family experienced delays in being able to appeal to the Special Educational Needs (SEN) and Disabilities Tribunal, while the child in question missed out on specialist provision within a mainstream primary school.Following the complaint – the council paid £700 to compensate the family for the injustice, and was also asked to review a further 26 other complaints and as a result of this review 20 other families received compensation for the mishandling of their cases.
More broadly speaking, the complaints reviewed by the ombudsman over the course of a year were used to identify recurrent problems and as the basis of a series of focus reports. These reports are intended to feed back the learning gained from reviewing complaints in-depth, to enable local authorities delivering public services across the country to learn from the mistakes which have been made in the past and the recommended remedies for those mistakes. The topics covered by these focus reports included the following:
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman is also one of the only Ombudsman schemes to publish the decisions they make following complaints from service users. This database is searchable by theme, key word, category, decision outcome, date and organisation, providing a vital resource for any public sector organisation facing the challenge of how to deal effectively with complaints from service users.
Another valuable learning opportunity for those tasked with handling complaints made to public sector bodies is provided by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO). This is the independent body set up to look into any complaints that have not been resolved by the NHS in England or individual UK government departments.
As well as providing a portal for service users wishing to pursue a complaint, the PHSO website offers a wealth of information and advice for the organisations which they may be asked to investigate. This information takes the form of Complaint Standards for the NHS and all other government departments. The UK Central Government Complaint Standards was published in October 2022, and sets out how all central Government services should approach the handling of any complaints they receive.
The stated aim of pulling together and publishing a standard of this kind is that it should help to ensure the following:
• Complaints are resolved quickly by team members who are well-trained and empowered to deliver
• All team members, but particularly team leaders, review the learning provided by the complaints handling process on a regular basis
• This learning is then used, across the board but particularly at the level of senior leaders, to improve the services being delivered
In particular, the Standards are driven by the hopes and expectations expressed by service users when making a complaint. These expectations were gathered and published in a PHSO report, and can be summarised as follows:
• Thinking of complaining – Service users knew they had the right to complain/They had been told how to make a complaint when accessing the service/They felt they would be supported when making the complaint/They knew that their care and service provision would not be compromised in light of any complaintThe expectations set out above represent something of a gold standard against which all public service complaints procedures should be measured. The creation of the Complaints Standards was an attempt to build a framework to be utilised across what can often be a sprawling and unfocused public sector, one which - consultation with service users made it plain – often led to service users feeling that the complaints procedure, if they ever had to make use of it, was confusing and complicated.
The upshot was that the public sector complaints landscape, having developed piecemeal over many years, was one in which complaints were felt to be discouraged from outside organisations and feared or ignored after they had been made. Against this backdrop it was highly likely that team members given the task of handling complaints would often feel isolated and unsupported, therefore likely to respond negatively rather than treat each complaint as a learning opportunity.
Empowering, training and motivating frontline staff to deal with complaints at the first point of contact, where appropriate, can benefit everyone. Handling complaints at the frontline provides a better experience for the service user and also reduces the cost and time spent resolving the complaint.
Of course, accepting what a public complaints procedure should deliver, and putting the processes in place to ensure that this actually happens, are two different things. Software like Workpro can play a vital role in turning aspiration into delivery when it comes to handling complaints, by streamlining the nuts and bolts of the process.
As the UK’s leading Ombudsman case management software, Workpro is fully aligned with public sector best practice and is fully compliant with the relevant regulatory schemes.
Making sure that a public sector complaints management process is compliant, effective, and up to the task of meeting the expectations of service users begins with the culture of an organisation, moves through the initial response to each individual complaint and then the manner in which that complaint is investigated before landing on a response which is reasonable and appropriate to the situation and the nature of the complaint.
• The culture of any public sector organisation should be primed to regard complaints not as an attack, but rather as an opportunity to hone and develop the service offering
• From the top down, the expectation should be of a non-antagonistic response to any complaints and to the notion of learning from the substance of those complaints
• Channels of communication should be in place between individuals, parts of the service and the service and its users, along which discussion of the learning driven by complaints and the response to complaints can be shared
• Support and training should be provided so that team members understand and are able to deliver best practice when responding to and dealing with complaints
• Reasonable complaints should be treated as positive insights into how delivery might be improved
• Service users should find it easy to make complaints, and should feel that their feedback is being treated positively
• Members of the team should feel they have licence and the know-how needed to resolve complaints quickly and effectively
• The final response to a complaint should combine fairness to all sides and accountability
• It should set out what happened and be clear in admitting if mistakes were made
• It should reflect the actual experiences of all parties involved
• It should flag up the accountability of the organisation
• It should provide space and the means for team members to offer their own suggestions for doing things differently
• Action should be taken to learn from the circumstances of the complaint, and embed any response in a way that improves services
Given the rising number of complaints within the UK public sector in recent years, a robust complaint process is not merely reactive but an integral component of successful service delivery, fostering trust, accountability, and transparency.
A compliant and effective public sector complaint management process hinges on an organisational culture that embraces complaints as opportunities for learning and development. By introducing the right tools, fostering positive responses to feedback, conducting thorough investigations, and ensuring accountable resolutions, public sector bodies can meet user expectations, continuously improve services, and build stronger public trust.