Terms of use
These terms apply when you use SocialCareScore, including when you rate your experience, write a comment, report a comment or use our open data. Please read them with our content policy and privacy notice.
1. About these terms
1.1 SocialCareScore (socialcarescore.co.uk) is run by [Operator legal name — to be confirmed before launch] (company or charity number [Company or charity number — to be confirmed before launch]), whose address is [Registered address — to be confirmed before launch] ("we", "us").
1.2 By using the website you agree to these terms. If you do not agree, please do not use the website.
1.3 Our content and moderation policy, submission rules, privacy notice and safeguarding policy form part of these terms.
1.4 We may update these terms. The date they were last reviewed is shown at the bottom of this page. Changes do not apply to ratings you submitted before the change, except where the law requires or where the change makes the website safer or more private.
2. What SocialCareScore is and is not
2.1 SocialCareScore is an independent website where people can anonymously rate their experience of council services. We combine ratings with published oversight evidence, such as inspection reports, and official performance data using a published method.
2.2 SocialCareScore is not:
- an emergency service, or a way to report a safeguarding concern. If someone is in immediate danger, call 999;
- a way to make a complaint to a council. Our help guides explain how, and our complaints guide covers social services in Wales;
- part of, or funded by, any council, government, regulator or inspectorate;
- a source of official ratings, legal advice or professional advice.
2.3 Nobody will contact you, investigate or take action because of a rating or comment.
3. Who can rate
3.1 You can rate a council service if, within the last three years, you used it or had contact with it yourself, or you are a parent, carer, family member, unpaid carer, independent advocate or other person helping someone who did. For some services, you can also rate your experience of contacting the council for a business, charity or organisation.
3.2 You must not rate a council department if you work in that department. If you have concerns as a worker, please use your employer's whistleblowing policy or an appropriate independent body. For social care in Wales, these bodies are listed on our escalation routes page.
3.3 Young people are welcome to rate their experience.
3.4 To keep ratings fair, no more than 2 ratings for the same council, and no more than 5 ratings in total, can be submitted from the same network each day.
4. Your rating and comment
4.1 When you submit a rating you confirm that:
- it is your own honest opinion of your experience, or that of someone you support;
- you have not included names, dates, addresses, case numbers or other identifying details;
- you understand this website cannot respond to safeguarding concerns or individual cases;
- you do not work in the council department you are rating.
4.2 Comments can be up to 1,000 characters and must follow our content standards. In particular, describe your experience and how it affected you, rather than accusing anyone of wrongdoing, and do not mention court proceedings.
4.3 We remove identifying details automatically and a person reviews every comment. You will see the version we store before you confirm it. Moderators may remove further words but will not add or change your wording.
4.4 You give us permission, free of charge and without any requirement to name you, to store, remove words from, publish and display your comment, and to include your ratings in scores, statistics and open data, for as long as we keep them under our privacy notice. This permission ends for your comment when it is withdrawn or deleted, except for totals and statistics already published, which cannot be separated.
4.5 You are responsible for what you write. Please be fair and accurate.
4.6 You will receive a one-time withdrawal code. Keep it safe. You can use it on our withdraw a rating page to delete your rating and comment. We cannot recover a lost code, because we do not know who you are.
4.7 Ratings count towards scores after a 48-hour cooling-off period and our integrity checks. Comments are published only if they meet our standards. We are not obliged to publish any comment, and we cannot tell you whether yours was published.
5. What you must not do
You must not use SocialCareScore to:
- post anything untrue, defamatory, threatening, abusive, harassing, discriminatory or hateful;
- identify, or try to identify, any person, including children, families, workers and other people who have rated a service;
- publish information about court or family court proceedings, or anything that breaches a court order;
- disclose private or confidential information, such as case records or correspondence;
- submit ratings that are not genuine, submit multiple ratings about the same experience, use automated software, or organise, pay for or reward ratings;
- get round our limits, security checks or moderation, or attempt to access areas or data you are not authorised to access;
- introduce viruses or malicious code, or interfere with the website's operation;
- copy or collect data from the website other than through our open data service and within its published limits;
- combine our data with other information to try to identify individuals;
- pretend to be someone else, or suggest you are connected with us when you are not;
- advertise, campaign or post spam.
Some of these things may also be against the law, for example under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, the Computer Misuse Act 1990, the Children Act 1989 or the law of contempt of court.
6. Moderation, removal and reporting
6.1 We may refuse to publish, hide or remove any comment or rating that we reasonably believe breaks these terms, our content standards or the law, or that could put anyone at risk. We apply the same standards to positive and negative content.
6.2 We may hold ratings for review, for example if we see an unusual number of ratings for one council, or copied text, and we may exclude ratings that are not genuine.
6.3 Anyone can report a comment. Reported comments are hidden immediately while we review them, and we decide within 48 hours. Our content policy explains the process.
6.4 If you are unhappy with how we have handled a report, or with how we deal with illegal or harmful content, you can complain to us at hello@socialcarescore.co.uk. We will look into it and reply, if you have given contact details, within 10 working days.
6.5 If a comment contains something that suggests someone may be at risk, we will not publish it. Our safeguarding policy explains what we can and cannot do.
7. Scores, data and council responses
7.1 Scores summarise anonymous opinions and published evidence using our published method. They are not official ratings, they have margins of uncertainty, and they should be read together with the information on each council page, including how much weight to put on each score.
7.2 We check the data we use carefully, but we cannot guarantee that every figure is complete or error-free. If you think something is wrong, please tell us at hello@socialcarescore.co.uk and we will correct confirmed errors and record the correction.
7.3 Councils may send an official response for publication on their council page. Responses must follow our content standards and are published with the responder's job title. Publication does not mean we agree with a response.
7.4 Nobody can pay us to change, remove or influence ratings, comments or scores.
8. Ownership and open data
8.1 We own, or have permission to use, the content, design and software of this website, other than comments and council responses.
8.2 Published scores and statistics are available through our open data service under the licence stated on that page. If you use them, you must credit SocialCareScore and must not present them as official ratings.
8.3 Comments are not included in open data and may not be copied in bulk.
8.4 Links to other websites are provided for information. We are not responsible for their content.
9. Our responsibility to you
9.1 We provide the website free of charge. We aim to keep it available and accurate, but we do not promise that it will always be available or free from errors.
9.2 Do not rely on scores or comments as the only basis for important decisions, for example about care, housing or education. Speak to the council, a professional adviser or an independent advocate.
9.3 We are not responsible for comments written by people who use the website, or for council responses, although we moderate them.
9.4 Nothing in these terms limits or excludes our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot be limited or excluded by law. Nothing in these terms affects your legal rights.
10. General
10.1 If any part of these terms is found to be unenforceable, the rest will continue to apply.
10.2 These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction. If you live in Scotland or Northern Ireland, you may also bring proceedings in your local courts.
10.3 Contact us at hello@socialcarescore.co.uk or see our contact page.