Our Service Charter explains the quality of service people can expect when they ask us to look into a complaint.
It was drawn up following a public consultation and extensive engagement with past and future complainants and staff. Organisations within the NHS and the wider public sector, as well as advocacy groups, also helped us develop the Charter.
The Service Charter makes commitments about the service we provide at different stages of our process and focuses on what complainants have told us is most important for them to have confidence in our decisions.
We use these commitments to measure how well we are delivering our service and understand where we need to improve.
We publish information on our performance against the Service Charter on a quarterly basis. In 2023/24 we revised our Complainant and Organisations We Investigate (OWI) surveys, changing the way we gather and report on this feedback. This decision was based on an extensive review and testing, allowing us to improve how we collect data.
View service charter results for:
2022-23
- Service Charter results Quarter 4 (January to March 2023)
- Service Charter results Quarter 3 (October to December 2022)
- Service Charter results Quarter 2 (July to September 2022)
- Service Charter results Quarter 1 (April to June 2022)
2021-22
- Service Charter results Quarter 3 (October to December 2021)
- Service Charter results Quarter 2 (July to September 2021)
- Service Charter results Quarter 1 (April to June 2021)
2020-21
- Service Charter results Quarter 4 (January to March 2021)
- Service Charter results Quarter 3 (October to December 2020)
- Service Charter results Quarter 2 (July to September 2020)
- Service Charter results Quarter 1 (April to June 2020)
2019-20
- Service Charter results Quarter 4 (January to March 2020)
- Service Charter results Quarter 3 (October to December 2019)
- Service Charter results Quarter 2 (July to September 2019)
- Service Charter results Quarter 1 (April to June 2019)
2018-19
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Service Charter results Quarter 3 (October to December 2018)
- Service Charter results Quarter 1 (April to June 2018)
2017-18
- Service Charter results Quarter 4 (January to March 2018)
- Service Charter results Quarter 3 (October to December 2017)
- Service Charter results Quarter 2 (July to September 2017)
- Service Charter results Quarter 1 (April to June 2017)
2016-17
- Service Charter results Quarter 4 (January to March 2017)
- Service Charter results Quarter 3 (October to December 2016)
How we gather and produce data
Our quarterly Service Charter reports are made up of two distinct sources of information: casework process assurance and complainant feedback.
A dedicated casework process assurance (CPA) team routinely carries out random sampling of cases. Each review of a case is based on whether there is evidence that the caseworker followed the correct process, in line with our Service Model. The team aims to sample around 800 cases each quarter.
An independent, external research company then undertakes telephone interviews to get feedback from complainants at various stages in our process. Complainant feedback (CF) scores provide us with insight into the complainant’s own view of their experience of our service. Each question is aligned with a service charter commitment. We aim to speak to around 600 complainants for the telephone survey for each quarterly report.
We combine the scores from commitments 5, 8, 9 and 11 to provide an overall score on whether our users feel we are feel we are making fair and impartial decisions. This is based on the findings of our 2020 research into fairness and impartiality.