Scottish Commission on Social Security: Unacceptable Actions Policy
SCoSS's policy on unacceptable actions
Contents
- Document Cover
- Introduction
- What actions do SCoSS consider to be unacceptable?
- Aggressive or abusive behaviour
- Unreasonable demands
- Unreasonable levels of contact
- Unreasonable refusal to co-operate
- Unreasonable use of the complaints process
- Examples of how we manage unacceptable behaviour
- Examples of how we deal with other categories of unreasonable behaviour
- Other actions we may take
- How we let people know we have made this decision
- The process for appealing a decision to restrict contact
- How we record and review a decision to restrict contact
- How to contact the Scottish Commission on Social Security
Examples of how we manage unacceptable behaviour
The threat or use of physical violence, verbal abuse or harassment towards SCoSS staff is likely to result in a termination of all direct contact with the complainant. We may report incidents to the police. This will always be the case if physical violence is used or threatened.
SCoSS staff will end telephone calls if they consider the caller aggressive, abusive or offensive. SCoSS staff have the right to make this decision, to tell the caller that their behaviour is unacceptable and end the call if the behaviour persists.
We will not respond to correspondence (in any format) that contains statements that are abusive to staff or contains allegations that lack substantive evidence. Where we can, we will return the correspondence. We will explain why and say that we consider the language used to be offensive, unnecessary and unhelpful and ask the sender to stop using such language.
We will state that we will not respond to their correspondence if the action or behaviour continues. In extreme situations, we will tell the complainant in writing that their name is on a ‘no personal contact’ list. This means that we will limit contact with them to through a third party.