Unless Labour stand up to the public, we will never have functioning services

[Rainbowsponge]

Which, obviously, will never happen.

Anybody who works in a public service - schools, NHS, any government department - will tell you the public have become more entitled, more aggressive, and are absolutely bombarding them with their rights to complain, have decisions double checked, have their case reviewed again, call meetings, and so on.

You only need to read on here the sort of minor incident a parent will then hop onto their emails and bombard their child’s teacher with messages about. It takes them 2 minutes to fire off an angry email, but this then sparks a chain of events which takes the teacher a long time (in addition to all their other work) to sort out and go through the relevant processes.

So, AIBU to think rather than throwing more money at bloating the systems, the government need to give people in public facing roles more powers to simply refuse to engage with trivial or irrelevant complaints?

It would also have the effect of allowing people to focus on their actual jobs and therefore reduce waiting lists, backlogs and so on. It feels like this culture of expecting instant and endless interaction from public servants is breaking the system as much as the underfunding.

Who will be the arbiter deciding which are 'trivial or irrelevant complaints'?

And we need more parents today hold teachers and school to account.

I agree with a lot of what you say, but I don’t think the wrongdoing among public servants is any greater than it has been. Police racism and corruption was far worse in the past; a few teachers have always had relationships with, or assaulted, pupils; there have always been brutal and wayward prison officers, etc.

In some cases a profession or job has degraded itself, like teachers, and to some extent doctors. The fire service is a great historical study in public service bolshiness. But in others it’s been a relentless dragging down by sections of the public.

Complaints on here about interventions and non-interventions by social workers and the family courts is one thing I roll my eyes about. The poor toilers in family services can’t win!

I disagree. When I was a child if I got told off by a teacher I didn’t tell my parents as I would get another telling off.
Now it’s gone to the opposite extreme; a child is told off for talking in class they tell parents who storm up to the school and demand a full enquiry.

I'm not sure the government can do anything about that really. It's a matter of (unfortunate, I agree) societal shift to entitlement, I don't see there's anything that can be done, perhaps beyond school management messages, to tackle this.

For what? They’re not on trial. No wonder they’re all leaving.

Generally speaking, I think it's a good thing that public servants are held more accountable nowadays. Obviously they shouldn't be harassed or threatened or insulted. And they should be properly funded. @Rainbowsponge when you said "But parents never used to email teachers because their child got into a minor scrap. They just didn’t. The expectation has massively increased." Do you think it's a good thing that teachers weren't questioned?

Yes, agreed. My OP wasn’t about people with serious health concerns - it was about trivial complaints, an increased level of entitlement, and people who almost ‘take on the system’ as some kind of hobby.

Did I say they should never be questioned? Or just that they should have the right to shut down frankly ridiculous complaints and not have to devote their precious time to a parent who thinks their child being called a poo-head is a great injustice that needs to be ‘taken all the way’?

Unfortunately I agree that it is a symptom of poor systems and services.

The public are expected to put up with crap left right and centre. Useless NHS, poor quality schools, public services inadequate and so on.

The complaint is probably (wrongly) something more minor but the final straw and something they can do something about if they complain.

Whereas everything else they just have to suck up.

Personally if I had any job prospects elsewhere I would have emigrated already.

You are incredibly misinformed

It’s first hand experience.

I run a reasonably well known public service. We've seen a rise in complaints about the standard of our service and I uphold them, because the service is not good enough- underfunding and short-staffing means we cannot meet demand. It is not acceptable and I agree and sympathise with the complaints.

There's also been a massive cultural shift in recent years which has seen people need more support. There is a mental health crisis going on which shows up either through people needing more support (they are suicidal, they can't function well enough to explain their issue or take in information) or it shows up as anger and unreasonableness (swearing, aggressiveness, demanding "reasonable" adjustments that are not- such as when a member for staff worked an hour beyond our closing time to support them, asking for an additional thing right at the end of the conversation and demanding it had to be done then as a reasonable adjustment when it was not a time sensitive issue and they were offered a call back the next day to complete it. They them swore and berated the adviser who went above and beyond to help them.)

This phenomenon has been observed throughout my network of similar services. We recognise the anger is stemming from unmet mental health needs, but it is exhausting and pushing already overwhelmed and over-worked staff to leave, compounding the issue of poor service as we are struggling to recruit due to working conditions and real term pay decreases. If the new government can put money into mental health support services I reckon it would help all public services.

Are some people really arguing there hasn’t been a general shit to more entitled, self-centred behaviour? It’s clear in all areas, not just public services. Where do you all live that you haven’t seen this??

It’s their job to enforce legislation to enable teachers to do this without ‘I’ll report you to ofsted’, yes

No thanks. I don't want to live in a society where I am legally not able to hold someone to account if I feel it's necessary.

That last paragraph sums up the problem. You view the system and the people who work in it as attempting to fob you off with a substandard service. I have some sympathy. I had a telephone consultation with a doctor the other day that ended with me saying "I understand the pressure you are under, but I do feel this would be much easier if I was allowed just one face-to-face appointment" - effectively having to beg or negotiate for something that was formerly a normal part of the service.

However, parents advocating for their children mean that about 14% are now identified as having special educational needs, many more than in the past. What you are advocating for is a better service than we used to get. In order to provide a better service, the schools need more resources, which they haven't got. So teachers are in a position of having to get more milk from the same cow or face upset and disappointed clients.

The nature of email, and replying to it, is also different to the meetings and letters that email replaced. I don't teach (any more) but I respond to complaints by email and they are somewhat similar to the emails I would imagine teachers receive, in that the complainant often isn't in full possession of the facts. In order not to appear dismissive, I draft my responses carefully, which takes time. If that was a letter, or a meeting, the conversation would naturally end. If it's an email, even a careful and full response can immediately generate a follow-up question or complaint, sometimes because the person you are corresponding with is annoyed at not getting their way and wants you to suffer for it. It's often not just a case of quickly exchanging information.

But it’s not your right to ‘hold somebody to account’. If I was angry at a teacher because they wouldn’t punish a child who simply hit back because mine was bullying them, should I have the right to ‘hold them to account’? It’s madness, frankly.

The public see themselves as customers of schools, the NHS etc instead of people who benefit from a free service.For me that has been the real shift in expectations. I've worked in the NHS and dealt with hundreds of petty complaints taking up useful resources ( I don't like the wallpaper at the hospital! My doctor smelled of garlic! etc). However at the other extreme, 50 years ago people were frightened of complaining about doctors, abusers knew this and were able to carry on unchecked for years. We need a happy medium.

Holding to account for what? Not being seen when it suits you? A child being told off by a teacher? Being spoken to sarcastically by a police officer? A sharp word from a tired nurse?

Who do you think makes the policies ? When you get high up you realise the problem with the civil service is the whim of government ministers who have no idea about the department they are running.

That may be a contributory factor but there is a level of entitlement within the public now, to know things and have things and INSTANTLY, not let the authorities get on with their job.

We are growing a society who views themselves as extra special, not that they are part of a mass, there is a very individualised view of the world rather than a community and society view.

Thats fine if you want to have self accessed/very independent services that you yourself control but it doesnt work with socialised care/policing/education/health etc etc

Spot on and very eloquent.

Spot on and very eloquent.

I'm frontline NHS and remember when we had a patient present at A&E for something which could be managed in the community, he refused to leave until he had been admitted, threatening to go to the media.

He was admitted and sat on the ward for what felt like forever even though he didn't need to be there. Any time he was told he could leave he just became threatening again and staff backed down. In the end, he apparently was told his benefits were going to get cut and he left the hospital that same day.

The powers that be pandered to this man purely because they didn't want bad press and a ton of complaints (even though they were in the right!). It's no wonder we have patients on trollies all over the hospital when there are entitled fuckers like this blocking beds.

And I agree, what I get from DD’s primary school is above and beyond what my parents got from mine. With me, they got me dressed in my uniform and dropped me at the gate every day. What happened in the next 6 hours was a mystery until parents evening as teachers didn’t have to upload photos to apps, reply to emails, have parents queuing for ‘chats’ at the school gate or all that nonsense. I was horrified to see photos of DD being uploaded at 10pm the other night - I wish I could tell her teacher just to clock off, I don’t need photo evidence that they’ve been learning about space. There’s endless mufti days, activity days, themed days, visits out. It’s on a completely different level to when I started in 1996.