Driving improvement, boosting efficiency
It’s a given that no-one enters a complaints process happy. Whether you’re a consumer bringing a complaint or a practitioner being complained about, it’s understandably not a place you want to be.
It’s really important for the SLCC that we work hard to make that process as smooth and swift as possible, all while delivering a quality service and fair and impartial investigations. One of the ways we do that is through continuous improvements to our complaints process. We work in an agile way, identifying and testing small improvements that could make a difference and monitoring and seeking feedback on their impact. We’re proud of our (award-winning!) approach and track record.
One key focus over the past few years has been the front end of our process. Our legislation sets out a fairly prescriptive process for how we must receive and categorise complaints, and the tests we must apply to see if there’s any reason why the complaint should not be investigated. Unfortunately, the ‘quick sift’ envisaged by Parliament that allows a complaint to move swiftly to being investigated or closed is at odds with the process inefficiency baked in to the legislation.
Despite that, we’ve worked hard to identify opportunities for improvement and to make sure that complaints requiring further investigation proceed swiftly to either resolution or to the relevant regulator, and that those which do not are closed. That’s in everyone’s best interests.
Improvements big and small have been tested and implemented and have made a tangible difference to customer experience. But we always believe there’s more we can do. Feedback from complainers, practitioners and stakeholders, along with input from our own staff and commissioners helps keep us scanning for new opportunities.
Where changes aren’t possible within the current legislation, we’ve worked with government to propose changes through the Regulation of Legal Services (Scotland) Bill, currently being debated in Parliament. We firmly believe those changes would allow us to operate a flexible, agile complaints process that allows a proportionate approach to different types of complaint. This will also lead to greater efficiency, which benefits the profession who fund the complaints system.
That work also helped us see ‘what could be’ if we could operate a more streamlined and proportionate sift, challenging again our thinking about what we could do within the current system. That coincided with a recent court decision which swung the balance in favour of a fuller review of this part of the process.
So over the next few months we’ll be testing a different approach. The initial sift should feel swifter and less onerous and complaints should move more quickly to be resolved, investigated or dismissed. For those CRMs familiar with our current process, some cases might look a little different while we test this. Please do talk to your case investigator if you have any questions about a case you’re responding to.
We think there will be benefits for both complaint parties and for the regulators who investigate conduct complaints, but we’d be keen to hear feedback from those engaging with the complaints process.
We believe these changes could make a substantive difference to efficiency of the process and will help provide a stepping stone towards the changes proposed in the new legislation.
What none of this will change is our message to practitioners that the best way to deal with a complaint is by engaging with the complaint and the complainer, exploring their concerns and opportunities for resolution and responding openly to any issues raised. Similarly, the best time to deal with a complaint is when someone makes that first expression of dissatisfaction, well before it reaches the SLCC. If you want to know more about this, we offer a full suite of guidance, advice and training and we’d be happy to talk to you about bespoke options for your firm or association.