Scottish pubs code adjudicator: communications and engagement strategy

Communication Priorities

We will communicate effectively with you.

Respect and dignity

• We will treat you with courtesy, respect and dignity.
• We will work with you without discrimination or prejudice.

Keeping you informed

• We will explain our investigation process to you.
• We will keep you informed of progress and tell you what needs to happen at each stage.
• We will always tell you who to contact if you have any questions.

Timeliness

• We will deal with complaints in a timely manner, taking into account the complexity of the case.

Clarity

• We will be as accurate, plain and clear as we can in our communications.

Accessibility

• Our service will be easily available and accessible to you.
• We will work with you to meet your individual needs, including working with representatives to support you through our service.

Understanding

• We will listen to what you want from us and ensure we understand your complaint. If we cannot help you, we will direct you to an organisation who can.

We will work in an open and fair way.

Transparency

• We will publicise information about the role of the Office of the Adjudicator, who is in charge of decisions on complaints.
• We will give you information about how we handle complaints.

Fairness

• We will consider all information provided to us before we reach a decision.
• Our decisions will be based on all of the relevant evidence.

Impartiality and independence

• We will make decisions on cases on the independent evaluation provided to us by all relevant parties alone.

We will carry out our duties competently and responsibly.

Expertise

• We guarantee that the Adjudicator (or the most senior officeholder in charge of your case) has the relevant skills and knowledge to make the decision on your complaint.

Explaining our scope

• We will clearly explain what we can look at, any restrictions that apply and what we can and cannot achieve.

Reaching sound outcomes

• We will clearly explain our reasons for our decisions.
• We will ensure remedies are proportionate, appropriate and fair.
• We will make sure remedies are put in place, as far as we can.

Ensuring impact

• We will use the outcomes of complaints and the learnings from them to promote improvement.

Handling information

• We will ensure our record-keeping is accurate, that we hold data securely and share it appropriately.

Putting things right

• We will acknowledge and apologise for any mistakes we make, put them right quickly and ensure lessons are learned to improve our service.

What we expect from you.

We are committed to dealing with you in line with our customer service standards. We also expect you to treat our staff with respect. We understand that you may feel frustrated, distressed, or angry due to certain circumstances, but please remember we are people too. Our staff deserve the same respect and dignity as our users, and we must ensure a safe working environment for them.

This means we need to handle any situation or actions which could have a negative impact on our staff or our ability to work. We may need to speak with you about this or we may need to change the way we engage with you. If this happens, we will explain what we are doing and why.

• We believe that everyone who contacts us has the right to be treated with respect and dignity.
• We will listen with empathy and kindness.
• We will treat everyone fairly and justly.

To do this, we need your help.

• Tell us what you need.
• Tell us the best way we can communicate with you and what method of communication works best for you.

We will do our best to meet your needs. It is okay to change your mind or realise something else will work better at any time.

Tell us if something is going wrong.

• We want to fix problems and to know if you are unhappy. Please tell us; we will check what we have done against our standards and make changes if we can.