How to reduce the burden of complaints and HR investigations 

What’s the hardest part of working in education?

Timetables that feel like a cryptic puzzle? Pupil behaviour that stretches your patience to the edge? The list is long but if you ask yourself, when does it get really hard and the answer is possibly when it gets personal. When you can’t leave it at the school gates.  When it follows you home, eats into your evening and keeps you up at night.

It’s not unusual for complaints to land at the worst possible moment. A common example is when colleagues are winding down at the end of term - what should be a time to rest and reset can quickly become a period of stress and crisis management when a complex complaint or issue is raised. In some cases, the timing feels deliberate and designed to create maximum disruption, pulling staff  into emotionally charged and time-intensive processes just as the holidays begin.

A rising trend with real consequences

Across the country, complaints are increasingly causing pressure, demanding immediate attention, and impacting not just workload but leadership focus and morale.

According to a 2023/24 survey by Browne Jacobson, 65% of school leaders say parental complaints have increased.

The Department for Education received nearly 15,000 complaints in 2023—a 25% increase on the year before. 

This doesn’t even account for internal grievances, disputes with staff, or informal concerns that drain time and morale without ever being formally recorded.

For school leaders and staff, this isn’t just ‘admin’. It’s emotional labour. It’s workload. And it’s impacting on the mental health of staff, as outlined in research by Education Support, which highlights the “unsustainable levels of stress and burnout” in education right now.

Building resilience with smarter tools

Complaints will always be part of school life but the way we handle them can change — with the right systems, there’s a better and less painful way.

That’s why Scriba is building tools that don’t just record minutes—they relieve pressure. By automating admin and streamlining the process, we help leaders focus on what really matters: responding with care, professionalism and clarity. 

• What if your complaints process was calm, not chaotic?

• What if the admin didn’t derail your evening or weekend?

• What if technology made things simpler and not more stressful?

We believe it can. That’s why we created Scriba. We’re here for the meetings that matter and even the ones you wish didn’t happen.

If you’re seeing an increase in investigations into complaints or feeling stretched by the growing volume of HR meetings, we’d love to show you how Scriba can help.