Performance and Quality Standards

Our approach to performance and quality

We have four strategic objectives that set priorities for all our corporate and casework:

1. Our service is easy to find and easy to use.
2. We remedy injustice through impartial, fair and rigorous investigations.
3. We use what we learn from complaints to help improve local services.
4. We are accountable to the public and use our resources fairly.

We have eight quality standards, aligned with these strategic objectives, that help us focus on how we achieve them through casework and public value work:

1. Our service is easy to access. We listen carefully to what people tell us and put things right when we make mistakes. We treat people with courtesy and respect and work without discrimination or prejudice.
2. We deal with each case promptly, from first contact to final decision.
3. The remedies we recommend are proportionate, appropriate and SMART.
4. We make fair, consistent decisions about which complaints to investigate. We explain those decisions clearly. Where we cannot or decide not to investigate a complaint, where appropriate we will signpost people.
5. Our investigations and assessments are impartial, and we make clear, evidence-based decisions.
6. We use the outcomes of complaints to promote wider service improvement and learning.
7. Our record keeping is accurate, and we ensure that the data we hold is kept secure and confidential.
8. Where appropriate, we will take a rights-based approach to our work. This means our investigations will, where relevant, consider the impact of flawed decision-making on the complainant’s rights.

To measure our performance and quality of work against these standards we have:

• Key Performance Indicators (KPI) – a subset of which are reported monthly to Executive Team (ET) and quarterly to Commission. These are quantitative indicators of organisational performance. They cover casework and corporate activity. Monthly reporting to ET is about oversight of key risks.  
• Quality measures (QM) – reported on a cycle to Casework Manager’s Meeting (CMM) (every other month), Casework Impact Group (CIG), and Commission (half-yearly). Significant drop in quality can also be reported, by exception, to ET. These are qualitative indicators of casework quality.
• Because of the significance of our casework, Assessment Managers and Assistant Ombudsman also use detailed Quality Assurance questions to check the quality of casework practice across a sample of cases in their team. This checklist is also used for the SOR reviews which underpin QM 5.  
• Another checklist is used to check practice that lies behind decisions subject to Post Decision Reviews and line manager quality checks.
• Finally we carry out periodic ‘dip samples’ of investigations lasting longer than 52 weeks. This is to understand the reasons for the time taken and, where appropriate, learn lessons about effective caseload management, making any necessary changes to process

Performance commitments

We deal with complaints of highly variable complexity and content. Our work ranges from straightforward signposting to organisations able, or better placed to deal with issues, through to investigating multi-agency, long term, apparent system failure.

Our performance commitments therefore focus on consistent quality of customer service, rather than unrealistic guarantees of timescales.

Our key performance target commitments are:

• 90% of Intake calls answered within 60 seconds, 98% of written contacts handled within 3 working days of receipt by Intake team
• Decide at least 40% of cases in Assessment or allocate them in Investigation within 20 working days of receipt.
• To complete our investigations of complaints within the following:
  • 75% within 13 weeks of receipt of a valid complaint
  • 85% within 26 weeks of receipt
  • 98% within 52 weeks of receipt

• Once we start to investigate, we will keep in touch at least every 20 working days to let complainants and the organisations we investigate know our progress.
• We deal with complaints about our service and post decision review requests within 20 working days.
• Where we cannot meet these timescales, we will let complainants and organisations know and explain why.