Current dates available for booking

Effective complaint handling (standard course)

October 2025

• Wednesday 1^st October
• Tuesday 7^th October
• Thursday 9^th October
• Monday 13^th October
• Monday 20^th October
• Tuesday 21^st October
• Thursday 23^rd October

November 2025

• Wednesday 5^th November
• Tuesday 11^th November
• Wednesday 12^th November
• Monday 17^th November
• Tuesday 18^th November
• Thursday 20^th November
• Tuesday 25^th November
• Wednesday 26^th November

December 2025

• Thursday 4^th December
• Tuesday 9^th December
• Wednesday 10^th December

Effective complaint handling (including children’s statutory complaints)

• Wednesday 15^th October, 10am – 3pm
• Monday 1^st December, 9.30am – 2.30pm

Effective complaint handling (including adult social care statutory complaints)

• Thursday 6^th November, 10am – 3pm

Effective complaint handling for care providers

• No dates currently available – New dates to be released in early 2026

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:

For local authorities and other public bodies:

• Effective complaint handling (standard course)
• Effective complaint handling (including children’s statutory complaints)
• Effective complaint handling (including adult social care statutory complaints)

For care providers:

• Effective complaint handling

All courses cover the same principles for handling complaints. The training for complaint handling in children’s services and adult social care for local authorities includes additional content on statutory complaints processes.

Key details

• Delivery: Online via MS Teams
• Duration: Four and a half hours unless otherwise stated
• Cost: £85 
• Number of delegates: Spaces are limited to 4 delegates per organisation for each date and limited to 2 delegates per organisation for courses on children’s services and adult social care complaints.

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 with your completed booking form (available to download from this page)  or any questions about our training.