3.1 Inputs from the Intake Team

Intake will forward cases to Assessment. All new cases are sent to the 'AT Unallocated' list. For further details about the Intake Team’s handling of viable enquires see the Intake Manual.

3.2 Embedded Investigator rota

The relationship between Assessment and Intake will be supported by an ‘Embedded Investigator’ rota, which will ensure that one Assessment Investigator is available each day to answer queries and provide guidance to the Intake team.

3.3 Allocations and Validation 

AMs are responsible for ensuring complaints forwarded from Intake are allocated in a timely and consistent manner, while playing to the strengths of the Assessment teams, and helping to meet the 20 working day target.

Assessment team members use the AT Unallocated screen in ECHO to allocate themselves cases. They may delegate this task to a TC if they wish. 

When allocating work, staff should prioritise any cases forwarded from Intake which are five working days old, or older. Where no unallocated cases are five working days old, staff may choose to allocate themselves complaints made about their specialist subject areas. Otherwise we should allocate the oldest cases before those received later.

By exception, we may decide to allocate cases out of turn where there is an element of urgency as a result of:

• the circumstances of the person affected or
• where someone has already experienced significant delay which may compromise our ability to 
  • investigate the complaint or
  • provide a suitable remedy. 

Some examples might include:

• Street homelessness where a local authority has refused to assist or accept an application for support.
• An imminent threat of eviction from a Care Home.
• Credible and serious ongoing concerns of threat to health or safety (see also section 15 of this manual about safeguarding).
• Where there is evidence of domestic abuse.
• The PA having a terminal illness.
• Where it would be more efficient to consider a new complaint alongside an existing investigation.

The Assessment team member taking a case will allocate it to themselves and attempt to complete the assessment phase within the 20 day target from the date received.

Allocation – ECHO instruction:

• A delegated TC runs a daily report on unallocated cases and distributes it to all teams.
• Assessment team members select cases according to the agreed allocation criteria within each team. This recognises that different Assessment team members have different subject knowledge expertise. 
• Unallocated lists can be viewed on Office Overview, go to AT Unallocated Cases.
• When the case is opened on the allocation screen, your name should already be completed with the default of today’s date. You need to add your Team. 
• Click Save.
• This sets the first AT allocation date for the case.
• Any change of case owner (in Assessment team) must be done on the Properties screen (under Case Actions).

3.4 Recording Persons Affected and Representatives

Where a representative is acting on behalf of the person affected (Consents):

• If there is a representative, information on consents should be recorded in the Notes and Analysis document.
• Where the REP has not provided clear evidence that the PA has consented, the consent form should be sent to the REP for completion.
• When we have resolved any consent issues, update the ECHO Contact Details screen to indicate ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.

Where Intake receives clear information about the PA’s and REP’s claimed injustice, they will record the PA’s and REP’s contact details according to the scenarios below. Assessment Teams should check to ensure the PA and REP have been registered correctly, particularly if they receive further information that was not available to Intake. 

For detailed guidance on whether we need consent and from whom in the following cases please see Casework Policy Forum guidance statement on Consent; you should discuss any concerns with your AM.

Where the complainant is acting solely as the representative of the PA (and makes no claim of personal injustice for themselves):

• The complainant could be a professional REP (e.g. advocate, solicitor, LPA) or someone less formal (e.g. a family member, friend or neighbour)
• There should be a separate record for the REP and PA in ECHO contact details screen
• We need to ensure we have correctly recorded who we should correspond with  

The complainant is acting solely to represent unspecified others and makes no claim of personal injustice for themselves (e.g. whistleblowing):

• The complainant should be recorded as the PA. Please refer to our guidance note on Whistleblowing for more information.

The complainants are jointly affected by the subject of the complaint:

• Both individuals should be recorded as Joint PA in the ECHO contact details screen

For example, two people are jointly complaining about loss of amenity from a neighbouring extension – both are complaining about the same issue and are claiming the same/similar injustice. 

Where an individual complains on behalf of another person and themselves:

• If their injustice relates to the complaint made on behalf of the PA, we should register them as Joint PA and REP in ECHO contact details
• We need to ensure we have correctly recorded who we should correspond with  
• In such cases, we should use one case reference number. This is better customer service for the PA and BinJ who are likely to have dealt with all related issues as one complaint

If the complainant claims an injustice in relation to an entirely different matter, we should register them as PA on that issue under a separate reference number and register them as REP for the complaint made on behalf of the other PA.

Example 1:

A daughter complains on behalf of her mother about the standard of her mother’s home care. She is also unhappy about the support she receives as carer for her mother.

We should register the daughter as REP for her mother and satisfy consent and REP’s suitability. We should also register the daughter as joint PA because her concerns about her support as carer are closely connected to the complaint about her mother’s care package.

Example 2:

A son complains on behalf of his father about missed bin collections. He also complains about the council’s failure to deal with anti-social behaviour from his (the son’s) neighbour.

The two matters are entirely separate. The son should be registered as REP for the complaint about missed bin collections. We will need to satisfy consent and REP’s suitability. We should register the complaint about anti-social behaviour under a separate reference number and register the son as PA.

3.5 Initial Telephone Calls 

Phone call – ECHO Instruction 

• Record your initial and all subsequent phone calls (or reasons for not making an initial call) in the Notes and Analysis document. Use the Phone Call Screen to record confidential information given in a phone call. This phone call record then needs to be put into the Do Not Disclose folder.

Initial contact by telephone is not a mandatory requirement of the assessment process. If the complaint already contains sufficient information to enable us to understand the complaint and make a sound decision we do not need to call the complainant. Investigators should, however, record that, or any other reason for not calling, in N&A (use auto-text ‘tel’ +F3).

If we need to call a complainant to clarify the information they have provided, we should introduce ourselves and explain why we are calling, and give them an opportunity to ask questions or reframe their complaint having been informed of any jurisdictional issues. We can also explore any need for Reasonable Adjustments to our procedures and check how the person wishes us to refer to them in documents.

Following a recommendation from our external reviewer and based on the Highway Code which makes clear it is not acceptable, we should ensure telephone discussions with complainants do not take place while they are driving vehicles. Even using hands-free equipment is likely to distract attention and it is far safer not to use any type of telephone when driving or riding. So, we should not be party to telephone discussions in those conditions, regardless of our or the complainant's  personal view on the matter. Most telephone conversations we are likely to have (both casework and non-casework) require concentration by both parties. We should therefore end calls where we believe the person is driving or riding, and politely ask the caller to call back when convenient and safe to do so. Where a caller persists, we should feel confident to bring the call to an end as this is our decision to make.

If we have an initial telephone discussion with a complainant we should set out boundaries for future telephone contact, including not calling the Intake team rather than leave/send a message and wait for a response. In most cases further telephone contact will not be necessary and we should avoid creating an expectation of inward or outward calls. However, we must remain responsive to the need for telephone contact as an adjustment for someone with a disability within reasonable limits.  

3.6 Enquiries

Enquiries made at Assessment differ from those made at Investigation. If we have enough information to proceed to a final decision we do not need to make any enquiries.

If we have enough information to at least reach a draft decision, Investigators should consider whether a telephone conversation with the complainant would be helpful instead and allow us to proceed to a final decision.  

• The Assessment team will do most of its business by email or OCS messaging, to gather the right information from the BinJ and the PA promptly, and to manage expectations properly where necessary.
• Language used in Assessment enquiries will be carefully phrased to manage complainant expectations and not give the impression we are conducting an Investigation. (For example: “I am calling to discuss whether your complaint is something we can look at”.)

Procedures

• First, see note in section 4.1 on whistleblower and personnel complaints, and do not make enquiries or disclose the complaint to the BinJ where we would not issue the decision to it.
• Where a complaint does not contain enough information for an Assessment decision, the team will make quick enquiries of the PA and/or BinJ by phone or email to establish the facts or request relevant documents. 
• Before contacting a BinJ, we must check we have the correct BinJ recorded on the case to avoid the risk of disclosing personal information to the wrong organisation and causing a data incident. We can do this by carefully checking information we already have, or speaking to the PA/Rep. Similarly, when we receive information from the Binj we must check it relates to the complaint and complainant to avoid being party to a data breach.
• A final complaint response from the BinJ will almost always be needed to confirm whether the complaint is premature.
• When making enquiries of a BinJ, we should send the minimum amount of information and in particular not third-party information which is not linked to the Council (such as medical letters). For more, see the Information Sharing Manual.
• Response times for enquiries should be as short as reasonably possible. We will not be expecting either side to generate new information at this point in the process.  Rather, we will ask for information they already have. It is therefore realistic to expect rapid responses to Assessment enquiries and far shorter timescales than we would expect at Investigation; three working days is suitable, unless the BinJ can explain why it needs longer
• Where the information is not provided by the BinJ, we will try to obtain it by other means. As a last resort we will make a judgement based only on the facts provided by the PA, and on the balance of probability; we do not need to be certain about what happened (see also section 5). This may result in the complaint being passed for Investigation, although only where it is clear on balance our Injustice and/or Public Interest tests are met.
• Where the information is not provided by the complainant within the specified timescale, the complaint should be closed with a holding decision if a substantive one is not possible.
• Enquiries should be tightly focused on establishing the key facts necessary to make an Assessment decision and should not be a general information-gathering exercise. The exception to this may be where we are asking for standard documents about a local appeal procedure, such as a school admission or a blue badge appeal, which will allow us to decide the case in AT rather than forwarding it to IU.

3.7   Next steps

Instructions for using ECHO

3.8 Notes and Analysis

In every case N&A is the key record. Every significant step Assessment should be recorded here. The time, date and key points of all telephone calls should be recorded. Investigators should also record all action taken and their key thoughts about the complaint – this must include the jurisdictional issues and discretion exercised, summary of complaint and view of the BinJ as known at that stage. Investigators must record their name against each entry.  There is an autotext (‘assm’ +F3) which provides a checklist and space for relevant notes; it is not mandatory, but it sets out the information we must record considering before we pass a case to IU and may also be useful in other cases.

If an Investigator is passing passing a complaint to IU, but unsure about some jurisdictional issues, record what the uncertainty is and say the decision reason is still open to the Investigator in IU. For example, in Assessment we may not know if it would be reasonable for a complainant to use an alternative remedy. Or, the AT Investigator, may record that the IU investigator can decide how far back in time to go in their investigation of a complaint.  

Please remember we must disclose N&A under a Subject Access Request, redacted as necessary. We must therefore mark as ‘Do not disclose’ anything which refers to the personal data of other people; note in red before and after relevant entries. These include:

• cross references to other cases by name or number, even if we use a hyperlink to ECHO which uses other text for display; the case reference number would still be exposed, which means the complainant could discover, by waiting for publication of the other decision if necessary, details about another relevant case and possibly the identity of the PA or Rep in that case.  Although this is a slight risk, we should still try to avoid it.
• quality or training feedback between managers, ‘buddies’, and new or experienced investigators.
• notes referring to any information a BinJ has legitimately asked us not to share with a complainant, under section 32(3) of LGA1974.

There is a separate guidance note for using N&A which contains more detailed guidance. Please also remember to check in the N&A and any other document in ECHO when you have finished working on it so it is available to other users.

3.9 Assessment Workflow screens

As well as the AT Allocation screen, complete and save the Assessment screen and either 

• the Holding Decisions screen (for premature/insufficient information decisions)

or

• the Early Decision screen (for all other assessment decisions, including decisions to pass a complaint to the investigation team).

Sections 4-9 describe the ECHO processes for these screens in more detail.

The Jurisdiction screen is still there but is not required; all jurisdictional issues and exercise of discretion must be noted in N&A.

3.10 Requesting and Scanning Documents

When Intake receive correspondence, they scan all key documents into the relevant Echo case file and name them. Intake will keep the hard copies for 12 weeks before returning or destroying them. Intake may forward large bundles of documents to the relevant office. 

At the Assessment stage, the Investigator should only ask for limited documents – and wherever possible these documents should be requested in electronic format. 

We should discourage complainants from sending unsolicited documents. Investigators should make it clear we will not return correspondence unless asked to do so and no original or valuable documents should be sent unless specifically requested.

Where we have agreed with a complainant we will wait for them to send us further information before making a decision, we should give a deadline by which they should send that information. We should then wait until that date before making a final decision.

Sometimes a complainant may send us recordings of conversations or telephone calls with council officers, care home workers etc who were not aware they were being recorded. If a complainant secretly records information, there is nothing in law to stop us using it as part of our decision-making process if we consider it to be relevant. If we do not think the evidence is relevant to the complaint, we should return it to the complainant and remove it from the ECHO record. In the interests of fairness, any recordings we are considering should be disclosed to the BinJ for comment when we make our enquiries. We should also tell the complainant at the earliest opportunity that we will share the evidence with the BinJ.

We must process, identify and store information according to our Information Security Policy and Retention and disposal of casework records policy.

3.11 Draft Decisions

Draft decisions (DD) may be appropriate where we need to:

• test our understanding of the complaint where we cannot do so by telephone with the complainant; or
• give the complainant an opportunity to comment on a complex or difficult matter, particularly where we anticipate they may have extra information or we are not confident about our reasoning.

The language used in the DD should be authoritative, with firm findings. But, the summary and draft decision sections should be more tentative as indicated by the template, making it clear that the DD is based on current information and may change. 

Most decisions at Assessment will not require a DD, for example where:

• we are making a straightforward, non-discretionary jurisdictional decision that is not open to debate;
• we are exercising a clear-cut discretionary judgement that clearly falls within the LGSCO’s published ‘Assessment Code’ and we have good reason for not offering the complainant a chance to comment;
• we have tested and understood the complaint and what led to it, with the complainant through telephone or email enquiries; or
• we have explained the likely decision by phone or email and given the complainant an opportunity to provide additional evidence or comments.

Where DDs are appropriate, they will:

• be sent to the complainant only. We do not send the Assessment DD to the BinJ,
• be sent as an attachment to an email with a response time of usually five working days, or
• by first class post if there is no email address, with a response time of ten working days. Due to the security arrangements in the Coventry office allow at least three extra working days for any DD reply to be scanned onto ECHO. 

Remember to apply any Reasonable Adjustments that the complainant has requested. 

While this may push the response beyond our target decision date, customer service and fairness should take priority.

We will consider any request to extend the time for the response to a DD deadline following these principles:

• The complainant must provide good reasons for needing longer to reply 
• When the complainant says they need much longer to reply then consider making a holding decision. 
• When a complainant makes a late reply, we will consider it and respond by letter. We will re-open the complaint only if the late reply shows there are grounds to pass the complaint to investigation.

ECHO instruction for creating a DD in Assessment

3.12 Decision statements

We write a decision statement for all substantive decisions not to start an investigation.

An Assessment decision statement will be clearly distinguishable from an Investigation statement - it will make it clear that we have not started an investigation.

We will publish Assessment decisions on our website. This will give a full and balanced picture of the work we do – presenting a fair picture of the performance of BinJ’s and helping to create realistic expectations for other complainants.

All decision statements must comply with the mandatory requirements and minimum standards as set out in the Statement of Reasons Manual, including the exceptions when we decide not to publish. Examples in that manual include suggested words to use, and some to avoid.

We have two templates for Assessment decisions:

• v1 has a ‘My assessment’ section to use when the statement needs some explanation of our reasoning beyond a statement of the complaint, our jurisdiction and a short decision reason;
• v2 is limited to the complaint, jurisdiction and decision reason in terms the complaint does not meet the tests in our Assessment Code. It is more suitable for cases with a single issue of complaint.