There are situations which it is not possible or appropriate to tolerate in a work setting. It is important to be able to identify these. These can occur both at the start of contact and when contact with someone has been going well for some time.

The problem of persistence 

Persistence may be a virtue for someone who has been let down by a public service. There are well-documented instances where significant public injustices were only highlighted and understood as a result of the persistence of a small group of individuals.

Yet unreasonable persistence is often seen as a significant problem in the complaints process. Organisations tell us they are finding it difficult to deal with. They are unsure what to do when someone has completed the complaints process but continues to:

In this section, we consider situations where a person’s engagement with us is such that an unfair or disproportionate amount of resource is being used. These situations need to be addressed. This section considers both how an organisation and individual staff members can respond to these situations by managing the engagement.

This section is aimed at individual staff to help them to deal with situations that they find personally difficult. In this context ‘difficult’ refers to anything which is making communication a problem. This could include factors which you may readily identify as difficult, such as anger or distress, but there may be other factors which are less easy to identify.

The basic requirements

The relevant Model Complaints Handling Procedures (MCHPs) published by the SPSO across each sector require organisations to have in place a policy to deal with managing engagement.

The MCHPs do not prescribe a particular policy or approach. As a minimum, we would recommend that organisations should be able to demonstrate:

Supporting respectful engagement: handling difficult situations

Message from the Ombudsman

In our work with public organisations across Scotland the SPSO is frequently asked about how to respond to people who are complaining in a way that the organisations find difficult. This guide aims to help organisations and staff in these situations.