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Raise Your Concerns

Since Social Work services come from your local Council, you can talk to your local Councillor. If you phone up the Council's headquarters you can ask them to tell you when and where you can meet her or him. Your Councillor may be able to act as a go-between for you and the local Social Work manager.

You can also talk to your local Member of Parliament or Member of the Scottish Parliament - ask at your local library for surgery and contact details.

You can complain to the Commissioner for Local Administration in Scotland - Scottish Public Services Ombudsman, if you feel that your case has been badly handled. Maybe you feel they're taking too long, or you're getting the run-around, or that services are badly managed. You're expected to have put in an official complaint first and to have let the Council answer it, and the ombudsman usually can't investigate if you've waited for more than a year before complaining. The ombudsman may try to "sort things out" informally, but if this doesn't work there may be a formal investigation, which may take several months. The Council can't be forced to follow recommendations arising afterwards, although most do. Sometimes the ombudsman recommends that complainers get compensation.

You can complain direct to the Secretary of State for Scotland, if you feel that the Council isn't carrying out its responsibilities properly. The Secretary of State is empowered to hold an Inquiry into whether a Council is doing its job, but doesn't have to do so if he doesn't want to. He can order the Council to do so and can go to court to force them if necessary.

If things go wrong?

Many problems can arise because of a misunderstanding, and it’s often a good idea just to speak to the person you’ve been dealing with. Tell him or her what’s on your mind, and listen to what he or she says. If you’re not happy with the outcome of this, or you don’t want to talk to that person, there is another way to get your concerned aired.

You can challenge any decision about the service you’re getting by using the Council’s complaints procedure. You can complain about any aspect of community care that you may be dissatisfied about.

This includes the services you get - whoever provides them - and it also includes the assessment by the Social Work Department, and the decisions taken about these services.
You can complain to the organisation providing you with services. Any independent organisation - whether it's a voluntary organisation or a private company - which provides community care services on behalf of the Social Work Department has to satisfy them that it has a clear and fair procedure for looking at complaints.

You can also complain direct to the Social Work Department whether or not it is actually providing the services you use. A complaint might be about delays, or about poor service - or anything at all. The Complaints Procedure was set up by law and is the main way you can get the Social Work Department to look again at your case.

You shouldn't be put off by the word "complaint"- you may have been delighted by nearly every aspect of the service you're getting, but disagree with just one thing. You should still put in a complaint - that's just the word that's used.

A reply-paid complaints form is available from all Social Work offices open to the public, but you don't have to use it - a letter will do. You should always complain in writing and keep a copy of your letter - and a note of when you complained. If possible, don’t just say what you didn’t like about the service you got - say what the Social Work Department would have to do to make you happy. You shouldn't have to put up with a delay of more than four weeks in getting your complaint sorted.

If you're not happy with the reply you get you can take it to a higher level within the Social Work Department, all the way up to a Review Panel or Committee which includes people who are independent of the Social Work Department.

If you've gone right through the Social Work Department's complaints procedure, and you're still dissatisfied, you can ask a Court - as a last resort - to look at the way your complaint was handled.

This is called a Judicial Review, and even if the Court upholds your action it will normally refer the matter back to the Council with directions as to how it should reconsider its decision. The Court can’t usually get involved unless you’ve gone through the complaints procedure, unless you’ve really been given the run-around.If you're thinking about any kind of legal action, talk it over with a Solicitor. You might be able to get Legal Aid for this.

Make a Complaint

For help to make a complaint, get in touch with one of the independent advice or advocacy services, or Legal Services Agency's Mental Health Representation Project, a project within a law centre specially geared up to meet the needs of people with mental health problems for legal advice - tel. 0141-353 3354.