Listening, Hearing and Responding: A Summary
Summary of the Conference on Complaints Procedures held at Dewar's Centre, Perth, on 27 November 1998
		Publisher The Scottish Office

Listening, Hearing and Responding

A working group comprising representatives from local authorities, voluntary organisations and Social Work Services Group organised the one-day conference which featured key-note speeches, presentations, workshops and a final plenary session.

The purpose: to challenge and improve the existing practice of complaints procedures for social work services; and to break down barriers about listening to complaints from all service users - children and adults.

Conference speakers were chairman Deirdre Hutton, Scottish Consumer Council; Angus Skinner, Social Work Services Inspectorate; Ann Ferguson, Age Concern Scotland; and Lyndsay Falconer, Tracy Graham, Gary Marnie and James Carstairs, Who Cares? Scotland.

The key message to managers was: aim for a cultural change, see the 'complainer' as the central person, and face up to the challenge of the voices of vulnerable people.

You are not alone

Deirdre Hutton

Everyone is struggling with complaints management throughout the private and public sectors. For the public sector, the motivation is exactly the same as for the private; but the customers cannot go elsewhere for services, so you have to listen to them.

The private sector realised first that the cross customer had a lot to tell them about what was not working between customer and company. In short, the complainer was a valuable resource.

A complaints system should: focus on the principles of access and redress; address people's needs quickly and send them away happy; generate management information - to help improve what you do; maintain the relationship between social work department and client; help to resolve issues as early as possible, since pursuing complaints is very resource intensive for departments.

Complaints procedures should be about culture, not rules. They should contain a messianic message: You have to listen, not just hear. Believe people, do not re-write the complaint in your mind as you hear it. Be open, welcoming and accommodating.

Building a performance culture

Angus Skinner

Complaints are part of the wider modernisation agenda and changing culture in social work services. They are linked to quality assurance/Best Value and to service development.

Learning is the key; and learning involves interaction. Every complaint is a gift. Successful people learn from their mistakes and their failures. Less successful people do not. That is a demonstrable key difference in personal and organisational success.

We need to build a performance culture, and empowering front-line staff is vital. This government is committed to sustaining front-line staff, to empowering and supporting them because that gives the best service. This government is also committed to spreading best practice rapidly across all services.

Social work services are vital to hundreds of thousands of people every day. Where we are not providing them in ways of which we are proud we need to make changes. Our task will be to focus on those who use the services.

The voice of children and young people

Who Cares? Scotland presentation

The right to complain is now a legal requirement for young people in residential care. This understandably leaves staff with a feeling of vulnerability to unfair or false allegations. But if staff were to work in a culture where communication with young people is encouraged and problems aired as a matter of course, 'complaints' could be dealt with as part of the day to day process of caring.

All residential establishments should have a readily available and effective system that includes an independent element. An easily read booklet should explain: what complaints procedures are for; how to make a complaint; the process which will operate once the complaint is made; what will happen if the complaint is proved; who to go to for help, with names and addresses of people and organisations to contact, such as Who Cares? Scotland, Children's Rights Officers, the Child Law Centre and Childline.

From the Children (Scotland) Act 1995:

Any child who is 12 or over is presumed to have a view. It is necessary to find out if the child has a view and whether he/she wants to express it.

In Scotland there are a number of different possibilities for advocacy, depending on the circumstances of the young person. Staff in residential units need to take responsibility in making sure young people have clear information and local access to people who can advocate on their behalf. Staff and social workers should promote the role of the Who Cares? worker and the children's rights officer.

Young people are not always able to express their views or opinions for various reasons. That is why advocacy is so important. Advocacy gives young people a voice.

The voice for elderly people

Ann Ferguson's presentation (Age Concern Scotland)

Barriers to service users and their representatives making complaints include: Lack of information about procedures and entitlement. Taking that first step to expressing concern or making a complaint. Confidence or the lack of it. Fear of retribution. Confusion about complaints procedures.

Proposals for action Involve service users at all stages of developing and reviewing your procedures and information materials. Provide adequate and appropriate information materials. Provide clear definitions of expected standards. Ensure easy access to free independent advocacy services. Support the development of self advocacy activity. Promote the empowerment of service users. Involve self advocacy and advocacy organisations with service users in monitoring how complaints procedures are working. Allow for independent investigations. Provide appropriate training on responding to complaints. Create a service culture which allows people to feel safe when they complain. Minimise the range of different procedures. Invest in local and informal resolution. Don't allow complaints to become an endurance test. Provide feedback. Avoid overuse of the word 'complaint'. It is important to find a different word to use so that people don't always feel they are complaining.

Themes from conference workshops

Learning from complaints

How can managers learn from complaints? What are the barriers and difficulties to such learning? A humane complaints process, which empowers vulnerable people and staff, is essential. This needs good communication, and a model which permits staff to express views about what works well operationally.

What is a complaint?

Are there formal and informal complaints? Do some 'complaints' fall outside the procedures? The important thing is to create a culture of openness; to have a system, but not one driven by procedures or hooked on numbers; and to log all comments, not just formal complaints.

Recording and monitoring complaints

How should complaints be recorded? What should be reported? We need more standardisation, with one access point within authorities for complainers, and with trained staff. Scottish Office guidance should be more specific on categories of complaints, recording vexatious complaints and capturing information on outcomes.

Complaints and other procedures

How do complaints dovetail with child protection? How do disciplinary procedures link with complaints? The child or young person should be the focus; and get the right people involved at each different stage. The Scottish Office could provide more specific guidance on the links between complaints and other procedures.

Complaints across different agencies

How is a complaint, involving more than one agency, investigated? What if the complaint is made against or by a third party? A relevant action plan should include a protocol for sharing information amongst agencies. The 'home authority' principle gives the registering authority broad responsibility for such exchanges.

Complaints made by vulnerable adults and role of the advocate

How can vulnerable adults use the procedures with confidence? How and where to obtain assistance for a complainer? We need a culture shift so that people know about how to complain; and we need staff commitment to using this process and encouraging the use of advocates.

Complaints made by children

How can procedures respond to children's needs? What role for children's rights officers? We need to take a holistic view of the child, with more staff training on communication and groupwork. The lack of resources makes it hard to process complaints.

CONFERENCE CONCLUSIONS

Culture

The one thing that emerges time and time again is culture. It is about a respect for individuals; a belief that they have views and that those views are valuable. It is about valuing people, recognising that there is no difference that they are in care, that it is a question of good manners. We need to: actively seek their views; listen, really hear, and believe; think about issues of confidentiality; adopt a consistent approach to people, across boundaries and within.

Empowerment

Empowerment requires a respect for individuals. There must be respect for frontline staff, influencing the way in which they interact with service users. If staff are empowered, they will want to do something to help. There is a real issue of training, to ensure that staff: listen; are empowered; feel they must do something in response.

Recording

The great black hole of recording is 'I will log it' - and nothing else happens. There is the issue, too, about how to record informal complaints.

Monitoring

This is a senior management issue. Do senior management teams monitor to see what is going on and to make sure things are working? Do they: look at complaints regularly - weekly, for instance - and ensure that something happens as a result? take comparisons between units and services? feed it back?

Independence

This is an issue among service users. They want: an independent person in local authority inspection teams; an independent person to go to, separate from an advocacy service.

Staff training

If you are going to have the notion of empowerment, you must make people think their lives will be better. Frontline staff - the interface - must have training and resources. But how to prove to middle management that there is something in it for them? And are staff disempowered by the structure of their own organisation?

What do people want?

People want to be respected and listened to as individuals. When they complain they want an apology, and for it not to happen again to someone else.

The way forward

Organise conferences across local council areas, not just your own patch, to take forward the messages from 'Listening, Hearing and Responding'; help to break down barriers and spread best practice. Take up issues about networking with Cosla, ADSW and others. Gauge the usefulness of an annual report.

Copies of the full conference report Listening, Hearing and Responding are available from

Mrs Ann Sinclair, SWSI, Room 38, James Craig Walk, Edinburgh, EH1 3BA. Tel: 0131 244 5423. E-Mail M.Ann.Sinclair@scotland.gov.uk

Purpose and responsibilities

Our purpose is to work with others to continually improve social work services so that:

they genuinely meet people's needs; and the public has confidence in them.

The Social Work Services Inspectorate James Craig Walk Edinburgh EH1 3BA

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