7.1 Introduction 

ECHO is our case management system and is the primary record for all complaints. All relevant material will be retained and responded to via ECHO.

7.2 Recording Persons Affected and Representatives

Where Intake receive clear information about claimed injustice they will record the contact details according to the scenarios below.

• 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
• We need to ensure we have correctly recorded who we should correspond with  

The complainants are jointly affected by the subject of complaint:

• Both individuals should be recorded as Joint PA in ECHO contact details screen
• For example, a married couple 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  

An individual complains on behalf of another person and themselves:

• If someone complains on behalf of another (e.g. daughter on behalf of mother) and claims or appears to have sustained a personal injustice and 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 complainant 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 

7.3 The ‘Reason for contacting the LGSCO’

Intake will not send complaints to Assessment without a ‘reason for contacting the LGSCO’. 

Wherever possible this should include:

• the fault that they believe the service provider has caused 
• the injustice that they claim to have suffered as a direct result of that fault, and
• the remedy that they are looking for. 

This should be recorded as a clear, brief summary of the complaint issues as expressed by the customer.

In all cases this reason will be recorded directly in the ‘Initial Information’ screen on ECHO. 

Advisors are not expected to filter or refine complaints received via the OCS. 

Where the reason for contacting us is already clearly set out in any accompanying documents, an advisor must insert a short summary of the issues complained about, whilst referencing the attached documents. This is essential because all other complaints data is deleted after a year. 

7.4 Premature Enquiries

Where a complaint is not clearly outside of our jurisdiction, but it is not clear whether the complaints process with the BinJ has been fully completed, the advisor will first seek to gather additional information from the complainant. If the status of prematurity still cannot be established, then a premature enquiry email should be sent to the BinJ.

The advisor will use the premature enquiry template to send the email to the BinJ and set the premature enquiry task for the AA. Nothing is sent to the person affected. The case should then be closed as Insufficient info.

We should not share reasonable adjustment requests at the point of premature enquiries. This is because it is not information the BinJ is required to know at that stage. If the BinJ do not respond the premature enquiry task will be picked up by the AA and the chaser email sent to the BinJ. The AA will then add the premature enquiry chaser task to the case again set for INTAKE.

If the BinJ fail to respond after the chaser then the case should be formally referred to the BinJ, with the usual documents sent to person affected/representative.

7.5 Notes and Analysis

All notes are recorded in the ‘Notes and Analysis’ page on ECHO.

Every action taken by an advisor must have an accompanying note. These notes must contain the date, the advisor’s initials and a concise explanation of the action taken about that case.

These notes are essential to help others understand the progression of the complaint.

Advisors must remember that copies of notes can always be requested and therefore the tone and content must be professional, factual and relevant.

7.6 Naming of documents

All casework handlers are required to rename documents in ECHO. The document name must begin with the date in reverse order i.e. year/month/day and it must clearly explain the contents. For example - 22 06 01 Prem decision letter to PA, would refer to a premature decision letter sent to the person affected on 1st June 2022.

The same naming process also applies to all inbound and outbound emails. For messages sent to the OCS, the subject matter must be briefly added to the basic description generated by ECHO.

Complaint documents should also be placed in the appropriate folder e.g. the substantive complaint should be retained in the folder called ‘Complaint’

Confidential material must be scanned in separately and clearly named as ‘do not disclose’ and placed in the ‘do not disclose’ folder.

Documents that are emailed will automatically be marked as sent but all other letters will need to be marked as sent manually.

7.7 Linking/Relating Cases

Intake may identify a number of separate complaints about the same issue that are from different people. If this occurs, then all cases should be ‘linked’ together on ECHO using a name that references the common problem.

Preliminary post code searches may also identify customers who have made several separate complaints about different issues or BinJs. If this occurs, then the cases should always be ‘related’ on ECHO using the customers’ postcode and initials. Cases should never be related using a customers’ name, but the inclusion of initials will help differentiate between related groups in the same postcode area.

7.8 ‘Child Involved’ Button

Advisors will, wherever possible, identify complaints received from Children and Young People (CYP). These complaints are from persons that are:

• aged 18 years or younger
• aged between 18 years and 25 years where there are special features in the matter indicating vulnerability (such as disability)

Where a CYP complaint is identified, the advisor will apply the usual procedures for processing the complaint. 

The ‘child involved’ flag in ECHO must be used where the complainant is a child or young person. This may mean that they are represented – by a solicitor, advocate, parent, friend etc but the fundamental point is that they are themselves complaining.

7.9 Signposting

Advisors are not expected to provide case reference numbers for telephone signposts unless this is specifically requested or would prove beneficial to the caller.  The correct Voxivo call outcome should be used for reporting purposes.

See also: Appendix 3 - List of outcomes

7.10 CQC Referrals

The Local Government Ombudsman and the Care Quality Commission both have the remit to consider certain complaints within the adult social care sector. 

Both organisations receive numerous contacts for each other. As a result, there is an agreement in place that allows ‘warm transfers’ whereby customers are transferred between the two organisations. 

See also: CQC / LGSCO Information Sharing Agreement

7.11 Joint Working Transfers ITLs (initial look tasks)

PHSO will send potential joint working cases through Egress to the Intake Outlook Mailbox. An auto acknowledgement will confirm receipt to the PHSO. These will be dealt with by the advisors.

An ECHO record must be created, the documents must be attached and it will need to be allocated to the Joint Working Assessment (JWA) team. 

It may not be clear from the transfer form or the complaint documentation who the complaint is against. The advisor will send the complaint through to JWA without a BinJ and this will be addressed by the team.

The date received is recorded as the date the LGSCO receive the PHSO email.

7.11.1 Allocating to the Joint Working Assessment Team

Unlike other complaints, for joint working cases advisors must allocate the cases to the Joint Working Assessment Team. The process is as follows. 

After forwarding to Assessment the advisor will need to go to the joint working screen and save the case. This automatically sets a task for the Team Co-ordinator and alerts them to the new case for the team.

7.12 Information sharing

The Information Sharing Manual contains instructions we must consider when sharing information with complainants, Bodies In Jurisdiction and others. Its key principles are:

• Only share what is relevant to the decision
• Do not share information from or about third parties
• Ensure you have consent to share
• Be mindful of safeguarding
• Delete irrelevant/ duplicate information
• Enquiries should be focused and specific
• Do not accept embedded documents
• Record reasons for sharing/ not sharing information
• Clearly mark information that cannot be disclosed and use the Do Not Disclose folder

The manual contains more detailed information about confidentiality, enquiries to the BinJ,  sharing data with complainants, use of the Do not disclose virtual folder, Data not shared virtual folder, Notes and Analysis, Redaction , Sending sensitive casework material by email or post and Frequently Asked Questions.

If you are unsure of how any of this relates to your complaint, please speak to your manager, the Chair of the Information Working Group or our Data Protection Officer.

7.12.1      Ensuring the correct BinJ is recorded.

We must make sure we have the correct BinJ recorded on the case before contacting them. This reduces the risk of disclosing personal information to the wrong organisation and causing a data incident.

This is the responsibility of the first person contacting the BinJ and will often be a member of the Intake Team when making enquiries of referring cases. The notes and analysis should be amended to show this has been checked.

When we receive information from the BinJ, we must check it relates to the complaint and complainant to avoid a data breach.

When making enquiries of the 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).

7.13 Reasonable Adjustments

Intake have a duty to identify and act on any reasonable adjustments (RAs) required by the complainant to access our services.

The reasonable adjustment duty is set out in the Equality Act 2010 and applies to anybody (such as LGSCO) which carries out a public function. It aims to make sure that a disabled person can use a service as close as it is reasonably possible to get to the standard usually offered to non-disabled people. When the duty arises, we are under a positive and proactive duty to take steps to remove or prevent obstacles to accessing our service. If the adjustments are reasonable, we must make them.

Any reasonable adjustments that have been identified must be entered into the Reasonable Adjustments screen on ECHO. This information will appear in red on the header of the case summary screen.

RAs are not necessarily static and may change. We must also identify, record and act on any changes or additional needs arising from further contact with the complainant.

7.13.1 Sharing Reasonable adjustments with a BINJ

In order to promote effective complaint handling, we will take a ‘tell us once’ approach to reasonable adjustments.

When we refer premature complaints to a BinJ, or confirm to a BinJ that a complaint is premature following our enquiries, we may share the details of the reasonable adjustment request. This will enable the BinJ to earlier establish effective methods of communication with the complainant.

Before sharing any information, we must ensure the complainant has had access to the privacy notice or has given us express permission to share.

If a complaint is being taken over the phone for referral to a BinJ, it is assumed that the caller has agreed to share their data. However, the advisor must also specifically ask the caller for permission to share the reasonable adjustment.

For complaints that we receive via the OCS, the complainant will have had opportunity to read our privacy policy. OCS users are required to confirm they have read the privacy policy before they can create an account. There are links to the policy throughout the OCS pages. The user also receives a link to the privacy policy when they submit a complaint.

In some cases, it is not always possible to ensure the complainant has seen the privacy policy or to speak with them. For example, we may receive a postal complaint where there is no phone number to call and discuss.

In these circumstances, if we are referring the complaint, the complainant will not be aware of our premature referral either. We will share the data under the assumption we are doing so as a requirement of carrying out our public duty. We must ensure we send the complainant a copy of the privacy notice alongside our referral letters.

For all instances, when we do share reasonable adjustment information, we should focus solely on the request itself and not share any irrelevant data. The reasonable adjustment request must relate to the current complaint, and we must not share any historical data.

The premature referral templates contain a paragraph for advisors to add or amend these details as required.

We must adopt the principles outlined in 7.12 Information Sharing

See also: Reasonable Adjustments