Impact
Our aim is to drive meaningful improvements and system-level changes in public services.
Why?
Our casework shows that the same mistakes often recur over many years, across different places and public services. The scale and cost of public inquiries show that learning from failings is not consistently happening. This reactive approach risks further harm and weakens public trust and confidence.
This is why impact sits at the heart of our strategy. We will help shift public services towards a preventative, learning-driven model by intervening earlier, preventing repeated failings and supporting sustainable improvement. Focusing on prevention allows us to address the underlying causes of complaints and reduce escalation to our service.
Our data is one of our biggest strengths, and the breadth of our remit gives us an unparalleled, countrywide, cross-sector view of what is happening in public services and systems. Complaints provide rich insight into weaknesses in service design, communication, complaint handling and organisational learning. By strengthening how we collect, analyse and share data, we can identify systemic risks earlier, draw transferable lessons and set clearer expectations of good public service. Our aim is to foster a culture where complaints are valued tools for improvement and prevention, not just signals that something has gone wrong.
Our work does not end when we identify an issue. We will strengthen how we monitor and support implementation of our recommendations to help make sure learning is embedded and improvements are sustained. This is how services become safer, fairer and more reliable, and how confidence in our independence and effectiveness is reinforced.
Using complaints to improve services for everyone
We will use individual complaints to make wider system changes that have impact.
When we receive a complaint, we consider whether it represents a bigger issue:
- Do we have other complaints like this?
- Does it represent a common or recurrent theme?
- Are complaints like this increasing?
- Are there multiple agencies involved?
We look at the wider context around the complaint or group of complaints:
- Is this issue localised or occurring nationally?
- Does it reflect challenges like increasing demand or workforce pressures?
- What is political and public debate saying on this issue?
- What does wider evidence and intelligence tell us?
If we think an emerging issue is systemic, we will consider whether to:
- group and prioritise complaints that represent wider, underlying, multi-agency issues
- trace the barriers, uncertainty and distress that individuals have experienced to understand how factors like policy, guidance and legislation may have contributed to this.
As we conduct our systemic investigations, we will engage with service users, organisations and wider stakeholders to:
- understand lived experience
- share data and insights
- make recommendations for service improvement
- inform policymaking and parliamentary scrutiny.
We aim to have impact at local, regional and national levels to help improve services for as many people as possible.
We will track the impact of our recommendations, engagement and policy work and use our impact measurement framework to monitor where we have contributed to or directly influenced change in public services.
| Objective 1 | Outcomes |
| We will focus on common, recurrent and systemic themes, highlighting underlying causes and emerging risks. |
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How?
We will strengthen our investigative and analytical capabilities to identify systemic, recurrent and multi-agency issues to tackle the underlying causes of complaints at scale. This includes expanding large-scale investigations, embedding new methodologies and building multidisciplinary expertise to spot emerging trends and risks.
Learning from these investigations will shape our policy, public affairs, engagement and communications, while partnerships will allow us to share intelligence, map system risks and coordinate action for maximum impact.
| Objective 2 | Outcomes |
| We will turn complaints data, user experience and wider evidence into high-quality insight, making it open and accessible to others. |
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How?
We will strengthen our insight and evidence base by investing in advanced data tools and staff expertise, conducting and commissioning research to understand the drivers of demand and anticipate future pressures. We will also use artificial intelligence (AI) responsibly to identify emerging themes, risks and opportunities. We will make sure AI is explainable, auditable and bias-checked with appropriate human oversight and clear governance.
We will build strategic research partnerships with academics and sector leaders to develop a richer, system-wide understanding of public service failings. We will also publish more of our decisions and data to improve transparency, learning and demonstrable impact.
| Objective 3 | Outcomes |
| We will track compliance and implementation of our recommendations and work with partners to make sure our findings lead to measurable improvements across public services. |
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How?
We will build on the success of our NHS and Government Complaint Standards by producing practical guidance, toolkits and training. These will be designed to help organisations deliver excellent user experiences, prevent harm and embed continuous learning. We will also work in partnership with regulators, public bodies and experts to co-produce recommendations, reports and engagement events. We will use our independent insight to inform public inquiries and parliamentary scrutiny.
We will maximise and develop relationships across all levels of the organisations we investigate — from frontline teams to senior leaders, service designers, trainers and patient safety specialists — so that accountability for learning from complaints is shared. Over the coming years, this will involve building our capability and capacity to advise on areas such as governance, assurance and workforce training.
Our work will link insights to national oversight and improvement programmes, monitor progress against the Complaint Standards, and direct our engagement where the risk of repeat failings is greatest. We will also measure our own impact, focusing resources where they can make the greatest difference and providing transparent evidence of sustained improvement.