Social Work Complaints

Outline of our complaints procedures and how to complain about services provided by, or on behalf of, Glasgow City Council Social Work Services

 

What you need to know
Glasgow City Council Social Work Services welcome both comments and complaints about our services. We define a complaint as ‘any expression of dissatisfaction with the services provided by, or on behalf of, Social Work Services’.

We view complaints positively; feedback from you helps us to improve our services. Complaining will not result in social work staff discriminating against you. Records of any complaint you make will be kept separately from your other records.

If you complain, the people providing you with the service will try to sort out any problems as quickly as possible by talking things through with you. We call this ‘informal resolution’; if you are not happy with this approach, or it fails to sort things out, then you can ask for a formal response to your complaint.

Unlike other council services, your right to make a formal complaint about social work is a legal right. Any formal complaint you make about Social Work Services will be dealt with according to a set of rules laid down by the Scottish Government. The main rules are:

  • your complaint will be acknowledged within five days
  • your complaint will be formally investigated by a senior officer of the service you are complaining about
  • you will receive a written response within 28 days, unless you agree to extra time
  • if you are unhappy with the response, you can ask for a more senior manager to review the complaint
  • you can also ask for the complaint to be reviewed by an independent committee of the council
  • you can refer your complaint to the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman

 

How to complain/who to contact

You can complain in a number of ways:

  • speak to a member of staff in your local office
  • write to the manager of your local social work office
  • use the freepost form in the leaflet ‘Comments Compliments Complaints’
  • telephone, fax or write to the social work rights and enquiries section at:

Social Work Rights and Enquiries Section
Glasgow City Council
Wheatley House
25 Cochrane Street
Glasgow G1 1HL
Phone: 0141 287 8757
Fax: 0141 287 8232
E-mail: social@glasgow.gov.uk
(marking your e-mail ‘For attention of Principal Officer Rights and Enquiries Social Work Services')

 

The Care Commission

Some of the services delivered by Education and Social Work Services (either directly or on our behalf) such as day care, residential care, housing support services, respite care, under 5 pre-school provision, foster care and children’s care homes are also regulated by the Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care (or ‘Care Commission’ for short). If dissatisfied with the standard of care offered by these services then you can complain to the Care Commission as well as making a complaint to us.

 

The address for complaints is:


The Care Commission
Central West Regional Office
4th Floor, No 1 Smithhills Street
Paisley PA1 1EB
Phone 0845 600 8334 or 0141 843 4230
E-mail (via website) www.carecommission.com

 

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Further Information


Information leaflet

‘Comments Compliments Complaints’ (157kb, 2 pages, PDF format). This leaflet is also available in printed form at your local social work office.


Annual Report

A copy of the latest Annual Report on Complaints is available in portable document format.  


Complaints Procedure

Full details of Glasgow City Council Social Work Services complaints procedure (92kb, 29 pages, PDF format) is available.  


Independent Complaints Review Committee

To make an application for complaints review committee, or to get further information about the committee, write to :

Committee Services Manager
Chief Executive's Department
Glasgow City Council
City Chambers
George Square
Glasgow G2 1DU

Please note that any application for committee should be made within 28 days or receieving the final response to your complaint from Social Work Services

 

Care Commission Complaints procedure

Full details of the Care Commission complaints procedure 


Scottish Public Services Ombudsman

For further information on the work of the Ombudsman contact:

Scottish Public Services Ombudsman
Freepost EH641
Edinburgh EH3 0BR
Phone: 0800 377 7330 
Fax: 0800 377 7331
Text: 0790 049 4372
Website: www.spso.org.uk

The above leaflets are available in portable document format and require Adobe reader to access them.  The Adobe Acrobat reader can be downloaded for free from the Adobe Web site.

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