Resolving Complaints about Schools
If you are unhappy with any aspect of your child’s education we want to hear about it and help resolve your concerns. This is a key commitment given by Scottish Borders Council as part of its drive to improve customer satisfaction (and this means you) and we welcome information to help us achieve this.
1.
A concern or a complaint?
§
Not every concern or issue you have
with your child’s education will be a complaint … and it is therefore right that
before beginning a formal complaints process, you allow your school (class
teacher or headteacher to address any issues you raise.)
§ It is always better if the staff immediately concerned have the opportunity to address your concerns informally as they will know your child and the circumstances better.
§ The broad definition of a complaint might include:
o Failure to provide the standard or quality of service provided by the council.
o Dissatisfaction with the way council and school policies are being applied or administered (including failure to take relevant factors into account.
o Delays in responding to customers’ enquiries or requests.
o The treatment by, or unhelpful attitude of, a member of staff.
o Unlawful or unfair discrimination.
§ The following are NOT regarded as complaints
o The first time you report a fault, concern or issue.
o A request for a service.
2. Informal process
If you have any concerns or queries
about any aspect of your child’s education, the first step should always be to
talk to your child’s class or headteacher. They will do their very best to
resolve this to your satisfaction.
§ Before giving you a detailed response a teacher or headteacher may need to find out more information – this can take a few days in a busy school, or longer if the school is about to break for a holiday.
§ Your teacher or headteacher will let you know how long they need to look into your complaint but they will aim to come back to you within five working days.
§
If at the end of five working days if they still have not completed this ‘research’, they will let you know that they need more time.§ If however you have not had a response at the end of 10 working days (holiday periods are excluded), or heard from the school that they need more time to look into your concern, you may wish to make a formal complaint.
§ If when you get your response and you are still not satisfied you may at this time decide to make a formal complaint.
§
If your concerns are about the conduct of your headteacher you may decide to make a formal complaint from the outset.§ If we receive a complaint directly from you (as your first stage) about an issue with a school our first step will be to talk to the school and give them the opportunity to resolve the complaint directly with you – unless your complaint is about the headteacher in which case we will treat it as a formal complaint.
2.
Making a formal complaint | There are a number of ways you can make a complaint |
o
Asking the school to log your concern as a formal complaintIf a parent chooses this option you can send this complaint into the Complaints Officer at HQ – or use the intranet logging system. This is the preferred system as it will immediately log the complaint onto the system and send an alert to the Complaints Officer. To log a complaint using the intranet
§
Go to the SBC intranet front page – this should be the default setting for you intranet or type http://hq-intranet-01/intranet/ into your browser§
Complete the form§
Print off a copy for your records before pressing the send button§
Press the send button and the complaint will be logged.o
Writing either directly to the Education Department – addressed to either the Head of Service for Primary Schools or the Head of Service for Secondary School.o Speaking to your local councillor
o Using the tear off pre-paid slip attached to the complaints leaflet
o
Electronically by logging-on to www.scotborders.gov.uk/complaints
o
Telephoning the
Education Department on 01835 824000 or by email to
ellinfo@scotborders.gov.uk.
| You will need to give |
o Your name, address and contact telephone number
o A clear description of your complaint
o Details of any previous contact with the council regarding your complaint – if for example you have already spoken to the headteacher and were not satisfied with the response you received.
§
Next steps
This will be dealt with by headquarter’s staff but you may be required to
assist with addressing the complaint in a timely manner. The council has a
strict timescale for addressing complaints and your help will be essential.
o Your complaint will be logged on the council complaint system and an acknowledgement with a complaints reference number will be sent to you within 5 days.
o Work will begin to investigate your complaint and you will normally receive a formal response within 20 working days
o Some complaints are complex and it may be necessary to seek information from other sources, such as NHS Borders – or from a school or individual teachers and sometimes even pupils.
o If this is the case we will write to you and try to provide an indication of when a response will be sent to you.
§ If we are at fault we will apologise and try to put things right.
|
If we
believe that we are not at fault we will explain why.
|
| If
you are still unhappy you can request your complaint be referred to the
Director of Education & Lifelong Learning … and if it is subsequently
still not resolved to your satisfaction you can ask that your complaint
be referred to the Chief Executive. |
| Beyond this, if you are still not satisfied you can send your complaint to the Scottish Public Service Ombudsman at: |
Scottish Public Service Ombudsman
FREEPOST EH641
Edinburgh EH3 0BR
| If
your child has co-ordinated support plan your appeal process is not
through the Scottish Ombudsman but through the Additional Support Needs
Tribunal: Tribunal Secretary Additional Support Needs Tribunals for Scotland 450 Argyle Street Glasgow G2 8LG |
Tel: 0845 120 2906 E-mail: inquiries@asntscotland.gov.uk