Outreach

A key feature of the SPSO is accessibilty. We aim to raise awareness, knowledge and understanding of our office with those who wish to use our service, organisations that are in direct contact with members of the public and organisations that we can consider complaints about.

Outreach Team

The Outreach Team
Working with the public
The Outreach Team are always happy to speak to members of the public about the work of our office.  The team can give general advice on bringing a complaint to the SPSO and also refer complainants to an SPSO Complaints Investigator for detailed guidance. 

The team are keen to consider invitations to speak to groups about our work. We have spoken to many different audiences - for example, retired social groups, womens guild and probus club members. 

Working with organisations
If your organisation comes within the remit of the SPSO or you work for an advisory organisation, here are some details on what we can do for you:

talk to you
We aim to raise awareness, knowledge and understanding of our office.  We will make sure that you can easily access our service and we can work with you to help staff learn from complaint handling. 

We particularly look forward to working with front line staff who are in direct contact with members of the public.  We welcome discussions about staff training, our role and your role in dealing with complaints, best practice and lessons learned from complaints.

listen to you
Staff are welcome to contact our office for general advice on complaint handling and policy and procedure implementation.  We are happy to provide guidance and support at any stage, although we can’t discuss the specifics of individual complaints as these may come to us at a later stage.  We can give advice on handling complaints and also on when and how to use them as a means of monitoring and improvement.

provide you
If your organisation comes within the SPSO’s remit, we can send you material to help with your statutory requirement to publicise the Ombudsman’s office to your customers and staff.  Our website carries information about what we do and gives examples of investigated complaints.
 
update you
We share best practice and work with organisations to fulfil our remit of improving public services through good complaint handling.  Our Outreach activities include participating in conferences, meetings, workshops and other events to inform stakeholders and members of the public about the Ombudsman’s role.

now over to you
The Outreach Team look forward to hearing from you on how we can assist or to answer any questions about our work.  Please email us at ask@spso.org.uk