Since launching the service on 6 March 2023, there’s been an increase in the number of referrals.
To reduce the number of referrals that are made without users first making a complaint, we’ve changed the exit page.
What we changed
Changing the h1 heading
At the moment, the h1 heading says “Consider making a complaint first”.
We changed this to “Your allegation is unlikely to be investigated because you have not made a complaint” to stop users from continuing to make a referral.
Removing the continue button
At the moment, there’s a primary green button that says ‘Continue without making a complaint’. This may imply it’s the action the user should take.
But in most cases the user should go to the school to make a complaint.
So we removed the button and added a link within a paragraph.
Changing the main content
At the moment, the content lacks clarity about how to make a complaint and it does not strongly encourage users to make a complaint.
So we changed the content to encourage users to make a complaint.
There’s also a link to ‘how to make an informal complaint’ which takes users back to the start page. This is unhelpful because the start page does not contain any information about how to make a complaint.
So we removed the link and added relevant information to the page.
We also decided to include a link to search for a school’s council.
Further considerations
We want to consider including guidance about:
- how to contact a school or college
- how to complain about a headteacher
- how to complain about a tutor that works outside of a school
Screenshots
Exit page
