Public Sector Supplement

BSI Management Systems

Public Sector Supplement

to the Complaints Management

Specification CMSAS 86:2000

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CONTENTS

Public Sector Supplement................................................................................... 1
Specification CMSAS 86:2000.................................................................... 1
1 Why do you need an effective complaint management scheme? ..................................................... 2
2 The benefits of effective complaint management................................................................................. 2
3 Your guide to CMSAS 86:2000 for local government.......................................................................... 3
3.A A commitment to listening and responding to your customers ................................................... 3
MEASURES FOR ASSESSMENT ............................................................................................................................. 4
3.B Your complaints policy and procedures ......................................................................................... 4
GOOD PRACTICE CHECKLIST ............................................................................................................................ 4
KEY MEASURES FOR ASSESSMENT ...................................................................................................................... 5
3.C An easily accessible procedure ....................................................................................................... 5
GOOD PRACTICE CHECKLIST ................................................................................................................................ 5
3.D A simple, speedy, fair and confidential process ............................................................................ 6
3.E An effective and informative response and outcome ................................................................... 7
MEASURES FOR ASSESSMENT ......................................................................................................................... 8
3.F Complaints used as valuable management information .............................................................. 8
GOOD PRACTICE GUIDANCE ................................................................................................................................. 8
3.G An audited complaint procedure ...................................................................................................... 9
GOOD PRACTICE GUIDANCE ............................................................................................................................. 9
MEASURES FOR ASSESSMENT ......................................................................................................................... 9
Glossary of terms............................................................................................................................................. 10

© BSI 01-2003 1


1 Why do you need an effective complaint management scheme?

Customers of public services often have limited choice but customers may lose confidence in services
and go elsewhere – Ombudsman, councillors, Members of Parliament, District Auditor or simply “shop
the system” contacting several services and agencies for the right answer.

Customer dissatisfaction is closely linked to dissatisfaction with complaint handling. 66% of residents
dissatisfied with local services have made a complaint to their local authority. Your dissatisfied
customers may delay or withhold payments incurring extra collection expense. A study in the private
sector showed that satisfied customers pay on average 14 days earlier than dissatisfied customers.

You can also develop a poor image in the local or national press – increasing your costs for dealing
with issues because customers have lost confidence in your ability to put things right or clearly
explain your actions.

A difficult to access complaints or feedback process can also create “difficult” customers who become
costly, time-consuming customers who have low expectations and a lack of understanding of your
processes.

2 The benefits of effective complaint management

An effective complaint scheme will develop a culture of continual improvement across services. The
best organisations, in the public and private sectors, are recognising that improving systems for
capturing customer feedback provides valuable learning opportunities to almost every part of the
organisation.

An effective scheme also:
Improves the reputation, credibility and image of the organisation
Improves customer confidence and satisfaction
Improves employee satisfaction through empowerment and recognition

Your customers will be better educated about your processes – a complaint may be an opportunity for
a customer to learn about your processes and how the council works.

Some other benefits of effective complaint management are:
Early warning of service delivery failures
Prevention of repeat problems
Free consultation and opportunities to involve diverse communities in service development
Reduced litigation costs
Cost-efficient services that are responsive to customer needs and demands
Increased customer satisfaction and loyalty impacting on:
Customer retention for services operating in increasingly competitive markets
Potential for successful public services to attract economic investment and reduce social
deprivation
Opportunities for central government rewards of less regulation and greater financial
freedom
Electoral loyalty for politicians

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3 Your guide to CMSAS 86:2000 for local government

CMSAS 86:2000 sets out requirements for a complaint management system to enable local
authorities to:
Reduce customer dissatisfaction
Improve performance and achieve best value in delivering services
Demonstrate compliance with best practice in complaint handling

This supplement to CMSAS 86:2000 sets out key principles together with good practice advice and
examples for local authorities wanting to be assessed for compliance with the standard. The ‘key
measures for assessment’ give examples of documents and data that shall be inspected during any
assessment of a complaint management process.

3.A A commitment to listening and responding to your customers

You shall be committed to giving your customers opportunities to express dissatisfaction with
your policies and performance.

Your Chief Executive and Management Board shall endorse and show commitment to a
complaint policy and procedure that is accessible by all customers.

A council’s Chief Executive and members of her Senior Management Board attended planning
meetings and training days to show their commitment to the launch of a new complaint
management process.

You shall make sure that all customer-facing staff are:
Trained and made aware of your complaint procedures.
Empowered, or have ready access to someone who has the necessary authority, to
resolve a complaint.

GOOD PRACTICE CHECKLIST
Do you:
Give a senior member of staff, such as a complaints manager, overall responsibility and
authority for the day-to-day management of the complaint procedure?
Encourage staff to recognise that a complaint is an 'opportunity to learn'?

An insurance company produced a corporate video for use at staff seminars to help launch a
new complaint procedure. The video showed how complaints could be used to build positive
relationships with customers and how complaints helped the organisation to learn from
mistakes.

Encourage suggestions from staff and customers on ways to improve your system?

A London Borough regularly sends opinion surveys to customers who complain and asks for
suggestions on how the process can be improved. The council also uses complaints training
sessions to get suggestions from staff.

Provide complaint training for all customer-facing staff?

An energy supplier provides regular complaint handling training and a monthly clinic session
where employees can get advice on resolving complaints made to the industry’s consumer
watchdog, energywatch.

Refer to complaint handling responsibilities in job descriptions and appraise performance,
for any employees involved in complaint handling, within your overall management
processes?

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Make sure that adequate resources have been invested to manage complaints by regularly
reviewing performance of the complaint procedure?

Many councils allocate a corporate budget for publicising and developing the complaint
procedure.

MEASURES FOR ASSESSMENT
Complaints policy and procedures
Staff appraisals and training plans
Business plan
Best Value Reviews
Scrutiny Reviews

3.B Your complaints policy and procedures
You shall have a clear and wide definition of a complaint that is known to all involved in
complaint handling.

You shall have a complaints policy that is known to customers and staff. Your procedures shall
be written, clearly displayed and available to both staff and customers.

A London Borough has produced information leaflets for both staff and customers to raise
awareness of the new complaint procedure.

Your complaint procedure shall be simple, clear and concise. You shall have no more than
three internal stages of complaint, with:
The first stage handled speedily by a member of staff
The second stage investigated by a senior staff member
A third stage, if the complainant is still not satisfied, where the complaint is reviewed
outside of the service department (such as a panel hearing or specialist investigation).
If you have less than three stages, you shall make sure that you have a process for properly
reviewing escalated complaints.

All of your customer-facing staff shall be aware of your internal complaint escalation process.
Your staff will be empowered to escalate serious complaints where necessary.

An insurance company has authorised call centre staff to pay up to £50 to resolve a complaint.
Unresolved complaints can be escalated for handling by specialist staff.

You shall regularly report to your board and senior management team on the operation of your
complaint procedure. You shall also make information available about complaints to your
customers in an annual report or newsletter.

A City Council produces a full-colour annual report on complaints for customers.

Your complaints policy and procedures shall be customer driven and both customers and staff
shall be involved in the development of the policy and procedures.

A housing association used staff and resident surveys and workshops to get suggestions on
how the corporate complaint procedure could be improved.

Does your complaints policy include a wide definition of a complaint that makes a distinction
between service requests and a complaint about your services and policies?

Do you:
Tell customers about your complaint procedure when they first receive a service?

© BSI 01-2003 4


A housing department gives all new tenants information on how to complain in the Tenants
Handbook.

Promote customers’ right to complain to the next stage?

A London Borough’s complaints policy requires that any complaint response must give the
customer clear information on how to complain to the next stage.

Keep customers regularly informed and updated on your complaints procedure?
Produce and update staff guidelines on your time limits to acknowledge and respond to
complaints and the action that can be taken to put things right when things go wrong?

A London Borough gives up-to-date information on improvements, timescales and remedies by
using special web pages on the corporate Intranet and Internet sites.

Encourage your customers to feedback praise and suggestions?
(You may decide to use terms such as customer feedback procedure instead of complaint
procedure)

KEY MEASURES FOR ASSESSMENT
Complaints policy and procedures
Annual report to customers
Customer satisfaction surveys
Customer involvement strategies
Business plan

3.C An easily accessible procedure

You shall give customers easy access to the complaints procedure and make available advice
and assistance to those who may need help.

Information about your procedure shall be proactively distributed and made available in various
formats such as leaflets, posters, newsletters, service charters, and web sites.

You shall:
Refer in writing to the complaints procedure at, or immediately after, the start of delivering a
service to a new customer.

A London Borough publicises details of the complaints process on Council Tax bills.

Publish details of your complaint procedures, supply a copy on request and supply a copy
automatically when a complaint cannot be resolved on the spot.
Encourage complaints by phone, in person, in writing, by email, and by fax and deal with
them with equal priority however received.
Make available details of the complaint procedure in customers’ preferred language or
special needs format (such as Braille or makaton pictures).

A London Borough produced a picture book for customers with a learning or literacy difficulty
wanting to know how to complain about a local service.

Do you:
Make sure that information on how to complain is well-publicised?
Give customers clear information on how to complain by phone, in person, in writing, email
or any other communication method that you provide, such as fax, Minicom, audio-tape or
Braille?

A City Council encourages customers wanting to complain about poor service to use a contact
centre that is accessible twenty-four hours per day, seven days per week

© BSI 01-2003 5


Give customers the contact details of the staff member dealing with the matter?

A unitary Council will contact customers by phone or writing to let them know the name and
role of the person who will deal with the complaint together with a direct phone number and
email address.

Publish a single contact point for customers, giving them a help line phone number to
contact and get advice on how to complain?
Proactively advise customers on how to contact an independent advocate who can help
them to make a complaint?

A London Borough’s web site advises customers about how to get the help of a local councillor,
MP, Citizens Advice Bureau or specialist advocacy agency.

Complaints monitoring information, especially trends by contact type
Diversity monitoring (ethnicity, gender, age and disability) of complainants

3.D A simple, speedy, fair and confidential process

The complaints policy and procedures shall be simple, speedy, fair and confidential.

You shall make sure that:
You set time limits for acknowledging and responding to complaints at any stage of your
complaint procedure.
Staff members of sufficient competence (who were not directly involved in the subject
matter) investigate escalated complaints.
Staff members are kept informed where complaints are received about their performance
and disciplinary procedures are separated from the complaint procedure.
Responses to complaints inform the customer about their right to escalate to the next
stage.
Responses to complaints are translated where requested.
Your final response informs the customer about their right to complain to an Ombudsman,
or other external review process, where appropriate.
Customer information is not misused.

Does your publicity include a statement that positively welcomes complaints?

Are senior management responsible for the performance of the complaints policy and do they
support staff in the operation of the policy and procedures?

A London Borough has set up a senior management panel to review performance in taking
action to improve services following complaints.

Do you:
Encourage on-the-spot resolution of complaints and use plain language in your responses
and publicity?
Give customers an opportunity to meet or talk with the staff member dealing with their
complaint?
Make sure that the investigation of complaints is open and impartial? Is the customer given
easy access to all relevant information?

A London Borough has developed a “What happens next?” guide for customers that sets out
what happens during and after the investigation of a complaint.

Make sure that customer data is sensitively handled?

© BSI 01-2003 6


A London Borough has introduced a corporate complaints database that allows staff in all
service departments to record complaints but has different access levels and security for
different staff so that customer data is kept secure.

Regularly survey the views and opinions of customers who make complaints?

A housing department regularly sends out questionnaires to customers who have complained
and report the findings to the department’s management team.

Promote the customer’s right to escalate a complaint and monitor “no comeback” by
effective use of customer satisfaction checks?

Performance in meeting response targets
Percentage of complaints resolved on the spot
Customer satisfaction with complaint handling
Customer compliments and suggestions
Reports to management and the board on the operation of the policy

3.E An effective and informative response and outcome
You shall:
Keep a log of all complaints – no matter how received

A car hire company advises employees to log all contact whether written or on the telephone.
The company’s complaint codes include personal service delivery issues such as telephone
problems (engaged, no answer or too may transfers) and process issues such as reservations,
check in and check out and insurance. The collected data is used to monitor trends and identify
root causes.

Have procedures that allow action to be taken to restore affected customers to a position
before the service failure (including compensation payments)
Have a comprehensive redress or remedy menu that clearly advises your staff on the
actions that can be taken to resolve a complaint

Several councils have developed compensation and remedies guidance for staff that clearly
sets out the actions that can be taken to put things right for customers.

Keep detailed information about customers and their complaints
Have procedures to support an external review by an Ombudsman
Have procedures in place to allow the exchange of information between departments or
partner organisations where customers are affected by cross-service issues

A social services department has developed a protocol with the local health authority for
handling complaints about both social care and health service issues.

Do you:
Show regret and give an explanation when responding to complaints?
Always apologise when things go wrong or misunderstandings occur?

A London Borough regularly audits complaint responses to make sure that customers who
complain get an apology when things go wrong.

Keep customers informed when you need to take longer than your published response
standard to deal with complaints?
Prepare an action plan when things go wrong and make sure that any proposed action to
put things right and prevent recurrence is carried out and closely monitored?

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A social services department has introduced a simple form that allows managers to record
details of any action needed following a complaint investigation and set deadlines for action to
be taken.

Is the role of the Ombudsman clearly defined and understood by all staff?

The Local Government Ombudsmen often visit councils and run sessions to explain the role of
the Ombudsman and increase awareness of the service.

Do you have resources available to support external review processes?

A borough council has resourced a corporate complaints manager post to manage the internal
complaint procedures and support and monitor the handling of Ombudsman complaints.

Complaints data collected by key service areas, including analysis of outcomes, escalation
and remedies
Effectiveness in dealing with complaints as evidenced by the results of complaints
investigated by the Ombudsman or other external reviewer.

3.F Complaints used as valuable management information
You shall make sure that service managers are regularly informed about key areas of customer
dissatisfaction and complaints performance.

You shall:
Regularly analyse complaint information and use information about complaints when
reviewing and assessing policies and consulting with customers.
Regularly publish information about complaints performance, trends and action taken to
improve service delivery.

GOOD PRACTICE GUIDANCE
Do you:
Monitor performance in responding to complaints?
Monitor the level of satisfaction with the complaint procedure?
Monitor customer confidence by analysing complaints from elected representatives,
solicitors and advice agencies?

Several councils have introduced local performance indicators to monitor response
performance, escalation rates, Member complaints and customer satisfaction with complaint
handling across all service departments.

Keep information about volumes, costs and resources involved in complaint management?
Categorise and analyse complaints? Are trends reviewed and acted on?
Use complaints as a source of learning about your organisation’s strengths and
weaknesses to improve services?

A London Borough produces a quarterly complaints digest that focuses on issues raised by
customers and action being taken to prevent recurrence.

Spread complaint information widely across the organisation? Is this discussed with staff?

A metropolitan borough council’s Customer Relations team produce a regular magazine for
staff that includes articles on lessons learnt from complaints.

Keep customers and staff informed about any action initiated?
Produce statistics showing trends of complaints and the demographics of customers who
make complaints and those who do not?

© BSI 01-2003 8


A London Borough profiles customers who complain to highlight communities where improved
publicity of the scheme may be required in future.

Complaints data collected by key service areas, including analysis of outcomes, escalation
and remedies
Diversity monitoring of complaints
Best Value and Scrutiny Reviews

3.G An audited complaint procedure

You shall regularly audit the operation of your complaints policy and procedures.

GOOD PRACTICE GUIDANCE
Do you:
Regularly sample complaint responses to check compliance with policy and procedures?
Do you also use the opportunity to check on what has been learnt from complaints and
action taken to prevent recurrence?

A housing association arranged a quality audit of complaint responses during a best value
review of complaint handling.

Arrange regular ‘mystery shopping’ exercises to assess accessibility?

A City Council regularly carries out ‘mystery shopping’ exercises to assess customer care
issues including complaint handling.

Performance in meeting response targets
Customer satisfaction with complaint handling
Customer compliments and suggestions
Reports to management and the board on the operation of the policy
Results of mystery shopping exercises
Cost of complaint resolution

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Glossary of terms
Board:
In this document, Board has been used as a general term that also represents a Board of
Trustees (National Health Service), Executive Committee (Local Government), Management
Committee (tenant managed housing organisations) and so on.

Complaint:
“Any expression of dissatisfaction (with the organisation) whether justified or not”

Complaints Manager:
A senior employee with overall responsibility and authority for the day-to-day management of
the procedure. This person may also be called the Complaints Manager, Customer Relations
Manager or Customer Feedback Manager. The role may be full-time in a large organisation or
one role of several for someone in a small organisation.

Panel:
A complaints panel of, ideally, three persons who are independent of the service provider.
Panel members shall be representative of the organisation’s customer base and may include
a customer’ representative and board members.

Remedies menu:
A remedies menu sets out practical action that can be taken to put things right for a customer.
A typical remedies menu would include:

Say sorry to the customer
Provide a service to the customer
Provide information or explanation to the customer
Review customer information (leaflets, poster and so on)
Review your working procedures
Request members to review a policy
Arrange employee training or guidance
Employee action
Pay compensation or give a refund

© BSI 01-2003 10

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