MCHP page draft

Since 2012 the SPSO's Complaints Standards Unit has worked closely with a range of partners and stakeholders to develop and implement Model Complaints Handling Procedures (MCHPs) for each public service sector.

All organisations within SPSO’s jurisdiction must ensure their complaints handling procedure (CHP) complies with the SPSO Statement of Complaints Handling Principles. This applies whether or not an organisation is required to follow one of the SPSO’s MCHPs. The Principles are an expression of how organisations and their staff should handle complaints in order to develop and maintain a positive complaints handling culture, and the MCHPs (links in the expandable boxes below) set out the process that must be followed when handling complaints.

The aim of standardising and streamlining complaints handling procedures has been at the core of this work, so all MCHPs are closely aligned. The key elements of each MCHP will be the same for all sectors, including:

• A shared definition of what is and what is not a complaint
• A two-stage process where complaints are resolved, with the customer's agreement, as close to the frontline as possible (though resolution can happen at any stage of the process)
• Frontline response to complaints within five working days
• An investigation stage of 20 working days, which provides the organisation’s final decision
• Recording of all complaints
• Active learning from complaints through reporting and publicising complaints information.

Sector MCHPs

You can find the MCHP documents for each sector in the drop-down menu below.