Senior Complaint Officer

Human Resources & Development - Form 35a Version 16 - Issued February 2025 JOB DESCRIPTION AND PARTICULARS OF APPOINTMENT ▪ Job Title: Senior Complaints Officer ▪ Post Number: P27864 ▪ Grade and SCP: Band 11, SCP 29 - 33 ▪ Directorate: Legal and Governance Where your role fits at Shropshire Council As a member of the Feedback and Insight Team within Legal and Governance, you will support the achievement of these key priorities, making a real difference to the lives of people in Shropshire. Shropshire Council's Feedback and Insight Team covers a number of functions and leads on: • • • • • Management of formal feedback (complaints, comments and compliments). Administering the Unreasonably Persistent and Vexatious Customers Register. Design, analysis and reporting of surveys and consultations. Administration of research governance process and delivery of research projects. Coordination of Shropshire Voluntary and Community Sector Assembly and engagement with the voluntary and community sector. Based within the Feedback and Insight Team, this role will play a key part in overseeing effective delivery of complaints and work under the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman's Complaint Handling Code and support statutory complaints processes. Working in a busy, fast paced and politically sensitive environment, the Senior Complaints Officer will take a leading tole within the team to ensure effective implementation of systems, processes and resolutions of all complaint types. Providing an outstanding service which ensures a positive customer experience, you will manage a caseload of formal complaints end to end in line with policy, procedures and relevant legislation. The post holder will be the Council's expert source of practical and theoretical knowledge on complaints regulations and procedure and will be responsible for Council-wide complaints handling training. Liaise with and respond to the Ombudsman and manage some of the most complex complaints Overview of your role The Senior Complaints Officer is one of the leading roles within, the Feedback and Insight Team, taking an overview of corporate Customer Feedback (complaints, comments, compliments and other enquiries) and providing other officers within the team with support, as required. The post holder must have a detailed knowledge of complaint requirements (in particular good practice under the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman's Complaint Handling Code. The post holder will case manage complex and challenging cases and will need to advise managers and senior managers on Shropshire Council's response to complaints and in identifying learning and improvements. In fulfilling their role, they will work closely with the Council's Complaints Manager, Complaints Monitoring Officer, and Feedback and Insight Team Leader. You will champion best practice across the organisation, facilitating the continuous improvement of the complaint process. You will encounter distressing situations due to complaints, including occasionally difficult interactions with staff. Occasionally, you'll face extremely distressing scenarios, such as handling complaints from those with challenging behaviour and talking to relatives of the deceased. Who will your manager be and what will you be responsible for? You will be: ▪ Reporting to the Feedback and Insight Team Leader who is in turn responsible for your health and safety, training, and development. ▪ Responsible and accountable for 2 members of staff, acting in a supervisory/managerial capacity, monitoring performance, supporting development and undertaking annual appraisals. ▪ Expected to play a leading role within the Feedback and Insight Team's work on complaints, supporting other members of staff and working as a team to manage processes and cases. ▪ Responsible for preparing responses in line with Shropshire Council's corporate processes and national/regulatory/statutory processes (e.g. complaints, MP enquiries, Information Governance requests, customer enquiries, media enquiries, HR staff investigations etc..). These responses should be in line with the quality and timescale expectations set out within Shropshire Council's published procedures and/or case allocation emails and discussions. ▪ Responsible for completing within expected timescales all mandatory corporate and role specific training. Training requirements will be detailed in your corporate induction and Personal Development Plan (PDP). Courses are accessed via the council Learning Management System via the Intranet. What will you be doing? • Work with the Feedback and Insight Team Leader in the delivery of their legislative responsibilities and national good practice standards. Developing, reviewing and implementing good practice guidance and legislation in relation to statutory complaints/enquiry procedures in line with the Ombudsman's Complaint Handling Code and supporting guidance documents. Ensuring administrative procedures are sufficiently robust to support changes. • Coordinate and support corporate and statutory complaints ensuring that requirements are met, and the outcomes are accurately recorded. At times the postholder may also be required to handle statutory complaints, working with the Statutory Complaints Officer to support complaint handling within children's and adult social care. • Maintain accurate and up to date complaint case and investigation records. • Work with and maintain effective relationships with senior managers and providers to fulfil their role and collect and collate information and evidence required to investigate complaints. • Handling calls and contact with complainants and keeping them up to date in terms of progress and managing expectations. Working directly with service users and their representatives, in relation to individual complaints and ensure they are kept informed about the progress of their complaint. • Take a coordinating role in work to respond to the more complex complaints cases received by Shropshire Council. This may include gathering evidence for cases where complaint handling chronologies are required and evidence is needed to support Ombudsman cases and statutory independent cases at stage 2 and stage 3. The postholder may also be required to support the Statutory Complaints Officer in the commissioning of independent investigators and independent persons. • Provide sound advice and guidance to staff, commissioners and providers on the handling of complaints, comments, and compliments. • Provide advice, guidance and support to the team. Specifically, to ensure the resolution of complex and/or disputed issues, without the need for higher referral, unless necessary • Take a lead on compiling responses to complaint related Subject Access Requests (SARs), Freedom of Information (FoI) requests, Proof of Life requests and other requests relating to complaints data and records. • Work closely with senior managers to ensure complaints information is handled appropriately and in line with other processes such as external investigations (including the Ombudsman), Information Commissioner's Office, Solicitors/Court, Police, and other formal processes. • Monitor complaint response quality to ensure a consistently high quality, and that complaints are prepared and approved within expected timescales. Work with the Team Leader to identify and address any quality issues as they are identified. • Take a lead in coordinating, arranging and providing expert advice and support for corporate complaint investigators at stage 1, 2 and 3, should that be required. • Take a leading role in partnership working to deliver third party provider complaint responses. This will include working closely with commissioning managers and Shropshire Council's contracts team to ensure contracts are robust and producing resources and training for the council's commissioned providers (working with the Statutory Complaints Officer in relation to social care providers). • Coordinate Local Government Ombudsman enquiries, pulling together the required information and sending the draft response to the Council's Ombudsman Link Officer. • Maintain an understanding of Councillor and MP enquiries and how they fit with complaints. Work to streamline and coordinate responses. • Deliver complaints handling training and issue tailored guidance to managers and staff making use of the staff intranet and other communication channels. • Ensure ongoing professional development and learning includes making use of the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman published findings, performance reports and theme/ specialist service reports. • Represent Shropshire Council on Complaints Officers Groups and on other national fora, as required. This may include monitoring feedback on the LGA National Complaints Officer network supported by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman. • Meet all information governance legislation and council requirements (including annual training). Ensure a more advanced understanding of data legislation (due to the more complex and personal nature of social care complaints) and work closely with the Information Governance Team to both respond to information and subject access requests and guide staff in data handling as part of complaint investigations. • Support the Feedback and Insight Team Leader in work to publish public information on complaint processes (including leaflets and templates). • Working with the Team Leader, provide situational leadership to the Customer Feedback Officers on matters relating to complaints, comments and compliments. Part of this work will include responding to abuse from members of the public. • Work with the Customer Feedback Officers to ensure the coordination and monitoring of complaints about services provided by or commissioned by the Council. Support the implementation of the Ombudsman's guidance on ...