It is difficult to say for certain whether or not parental complaints about schools are on the increase. There are no national statistics. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that parents are complaining more about their children’s schooling and First Minister Jack McConnell’s announcement in November of a review intended to improve communication with parents and to give them a stronger voice also suggests there are problems that need to be resolved.

Ken Cunningham, the president of the Headteachers’ Association of Scotland, says that in the secondary sector complaints are “definitely on the increase” and he sees two broad categories of parental complaint: the “helpful” and the “stressful”.

“The climate we’ve created politically and locally, making schools more user friendly, almost invites complaints,” he says. “Parents are more willing to speak out, to talk to us in a way they weren’t before, and here the tone is not too bad. It’s time-consuming but you try always to respond positively. I think you could call this the helpful category.

“The stressful category is where people start by emphasising their rights rather than their responsibilities and go to their lawyers at the drop of a hat. The increase here - and it’s been huge over the past 10 years in my experience - is both time consuming and demoralising, causing a lot of headaches and unhappiness.”

Mr Cunningham, who is headteacher of Hillhead High School in Glasgow, believes that “a lot of school managements” have to deal with the stressful category of complaints “on a pretty regular basis”. He says: “Rather than the complainant contacting the school directly it often starts with a lawyer’s letter or a letter to the local authority.”

Jim Docherty, the depute general secretary of the Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association, says that in dealing with initial complaints it is important fto work out whom the complaint is really against: the individual teacher, the principal teacher or department, the whole school policy (for example, about dress code or the amount of homework demanded) or the local authority.

“In too many cases the class teacher is the immediate recipient of the complaint. Of course, teachers are capable of mistakes but, equally, I believe that every local authority in Scotland has a more than adequate complaints procedure system and that they often bend over backwards to deal with parental complaints.”

Mr Docherty thinks most complaints are based on misunderstanding rather than being malicious; but it all adds extra stress.

“I would say that it would be an unusual secondary school in Scotland that did not have one teacher off in any given year over stress caused by an unfair or unbalanced complaint,” he says.

“The malicious ones often have a history, like ‘I didn’t get you for the way you treated my elder son so I’ll get you for the younger’, or the motive can even be based on the complainant’s own school experiences.

“In some ways the most distressing are the complaints about special educational needs kids being ‘in my kid’s class when they ought to be in a special school’. That’s a complaint against policy, of course, and we often tell SSTA members to make no personal response to complaints like this because they have to be dealt with elsewhere.

“I think there’s also a significant number of complaints raised over specious matters where the motive is financial gain, a so-called compensation claim. We live in litigious times.”

Bill Milligan, the president of the Association of Head Teachers in Scotland, believes that malicious complaints are few in proportion in the primary sector, “though it’s still tragic when it happens”.

He attributes the increase in parental complaints in general to the pace of change in society and the fact that people are encouraged to be more up front.

“That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” he says.

Judith Gillespie, the development manager for the Scottish Parent Teacher Council, points to the consumerist clothing which educational delivery is dressed in these days as a partial cause of increasing parental complaints. But the real cause, she believes, lies with those doing the dressing up: the politicians who are making unrealistic promises.

“The problem is the heightened expectations of what an education system could or should deliver, something which has grown from the parental choice days of the Tory administration and is now fuelled by the focus on consumer outcomes rather than on the service provider,” she says.

“In the past, parents were more willing to see their children fitting into the system as it stood. Today, the politicians’ rhetoric suggests that the system can provide for every individual child, but it can’t, especially if your expectations are not mainstream.

“The rhetoric is unrealistic and the situation is difficult to deal with because it require politicians to be more honest.

“Education is not shopping. Even if it were, the comparison is still misjudged. The market system does not cater for minorities in reality. Its money is made in the mass market. Any minority consumer will soon tell you how quickly lines are discontinued and how diffficult it is to get things in your own size.”

That said, Mrs Gillespie argues that schools do cater for minorities “far more than the market system does”, though parents still have to understand that an individual child’s needs have to be balanced against those of the class, or the school, as a whole.

School boards and parent-teacher associations should not get involved in individual complaints, says Mrs Gillespie, unless they can turn them into generic complaints.

“It’s not a case of the PTA or school board getting involved in Johnny’s parents’ complaints about the boy being bullied. They shouldn’t. But they could and should be asking what is the school policy on bullying.”

For Mr Cunningham there is also a third category of complainants who can be time-consuming but for whom schools can often do very little. They are the general public, those who telephone the local school about litter, graffiti, crowds of children congregating together causing a nuisance or the abuse of older people in the streets by children, or other incidents or behaviour which occur outwith school hours and premises.

“You get a lot of this and schools do make an effort, but their powers are limited,” he says.

Edinburgh Council’s unique advice and conciliation service, whose roles include handling parental complaints, may become a model for the Scottish Executive’s proposed national system for dealing with grievances because of its proven success.

According to its most recent annual report, the number of complaint cases formally raised in 2000-2001 was 84. This represents a 39 per cent decrease on the previous year and a 52 per cent decrease over the past four years.

“People threaten when they don’t think they’re being heard,” says Eilish Garland, the principal officer for the service.

“Complaints should be regarded as positive market research, as part of partnership with parents and as part of social inclusion. We learn from what parents say when their complaints are justified and that’s beneficial to the education service.”

However, two out of three complaints are unjustified, she says.

The service, the only one in Scotland dedicated solely to education, has two sides to it. Advice is given on how to resolve difficulties at a local level. The telephone helpline is used by parents, teachers and other school staff. Ms Garland says some 35 per cent of callers are staff seeking advice on issues ranging from how to handle aggressive parents to how to respond to lawyers’ letters.

Last year saw 650 advice enquiries from parents which involved the service in what Ms Garland calls “shuttle mediation”, telephoning parents and schools. The majority of these perceived problems were resolved without going on to the conciliation side of the service.

“If the matter is not resolved at local level, a full investigation is started. I go to the school and meet with the staff involved as well as with the parent(s).

“Then I’ll chair a mediation meeting in the school and won’t leave the room until an action plan is drawn up in the child’s best interest. That, after all, is what it’s about.”

Ms Garland sees her role as de-escalating the problem on its way to resolution. “You don’t de-escalate at any price, of course. But I try to help people to realise what is reasonable to expect.

“If trades union representatives ask on behalf of the staff member to be part of the process, I invite them to come as observers and not as part of the process. This has always been agreed to so far.

“I’m not here to take sides. I don’t carry a brief for teachers. I have to be totally impartial in order to defend the integrity of the service,” she says.

Afterwards, Ms Garland will summarise the complaints and conclusions in a letter detailing the action plan agreed.

Eighty-eight per cent of complainants last year said they were satisfied with the Edinburgh’s conciliation service, according to the annual report. It states: “This is especially noteworthy considering that 83 per cent of complaints were found to be unjustified.

“This finding emphasises that it is not always the outcome that is considered of paramount importance for parents, users and members of the public. Rather it is evident that being listened to, and being taken seriously, as well as objectivity and fairness in the investigation of complaints, with discussion of realistic expectations towards resolution, are the more significant elements in terms of levels of satisfaction.”

Most staff who have used the service have also expressed satisfaction. Last year, 98 per cent said they were “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with consultation about the progress and outcome of complaint investigations, and the staff involved in mediation expressed “high satisfaction levels” with the process, even if the parental complaint was found to be justified.

There is no sociological or geographical concentration of parental or user complaints, says Ms Garland. They come from all sectors of society and from all schools across the city.

Ms Garland is sceptical about the anecdotal evidence suggesting higher levels of complaints. “I think there are increasing demands on schools to be open and responsive because people today have higher expectations and want better customer care,” she says. “They want to be listened to and above all not to be patronised.

“In Edinburgh, in any complaint situation parents can be advised of the advice and conciliation service by the headteacher and can phone us directly. The service is advertised in every pupil’s year handbook.”

Liz Whyte, headteacher of Royston Primary school in Edinburgh, is enthusaistic about the service, which has led to an “amazing turnaround”, she says. When she took up her post some years ago, “I was constantly getting my head kicked in, metaphorically, by parents, but that just doesn’t happen now.”

She says the service is very good at dealing personally with parents, who are happy that an independent body has listened to them. It also bolsters teachers, for example by suggesting how letters to upset parents can be effectively worded.