Complaints Policy and Procedure

Author information

Produced by: Director of Quality

Date created: December 2011

Updated by: Chief Executive Officer

Approval by: Executive Team

Last reviewed: April 2025 (no changes)

Audit date: April 2026

Version history

February 2023

Policy re-written and published online.

Key information: How to make a complaint

This is a quick summary of how to make a complaint and how the complaint will be handled by InFocus Charity. The full complaint policy and procedure follows this page for your information.

We take complaints seriously and view them as an opportunity to improve our services. We understand that making a complaint can be stressful for all involved and will try to ensure that the process is effective and there is good communication throughout.

If you wish to make a complaint about any service provided by InFocus Charity (e.g. our school, college, adult services, charity shops, or any other department) or about any employee or volunteer of InFocus Charity then you should

Contact the manager of the service or relevant department directly either verbally by telephone via 01392454200 or in writing (letter or email).
If you are unsure where to address a complaint or want to make a general complaint you can use complaints@infocus-charity.org.uk or call 01392 454200 and ask to speak to the complaints co-ordinator who will direct you to the correct person in the first instance.
The manager you contact will aim to resolve the complaint with you in an informal manner, taking any actions as required.
Where this is not successful or appropriate (due to the complexity or the gravity of the complaint), we will allocate a different manager to be the responsible manager for your complaint. They will acknowledge your complaint and contact you to discuss the matter and to find out what resolution you seek.
The responsible manager will investigate the matter themselves or appoint an independent investigator to gather the facts. The responsible manager will then arrive at an outcome and discuss this with you either verbally, in a meeting or via correspondence, outlining any actions to be taken if appropriate.
If you are not happy with the outcome, there is an appeals process.
You can also make a complaint to the relevant commissioning or regulatory body or the relevant ombudsman, although they would usually expect that this complaints process has been used initially.

Scope

This procedure should be applied to all complaints made by young people, parents/carers, external professionals, neighbours, customers, external agencies and the general public received by any part of the organisation. If the complaint relates to a Child Protection or Vulnerable adult issue then it must immediately be referred to the Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) or a member of the safeguarding team. Staff complaints are dealt with under the Grievance Procedure.

Dissatisfaction expressed by a young person should be seen as important and worthy of addressing and as such a form of complaint that is acknowledged, investigated and responded to. Our young people may need support to make a formal complaint as the process may seem daunting or hard to understand. Staff receiving the complaint from a young person must respond appropriately to the young person’s age and understanding and using a medium accessible to the young person.

Responsibilities

All staff at the InFocus Charity should be aware of the complaints procedure and the importance of using complaints to improve the services we offer. Managers are responsible for handling complaints in line with the policy, ensuring the recording of the complaint and making timely responses.

Trustees are responsible for overseeing complaints as part of their quality assurance role and will receive a regular report.

Implementation

All managers will be made aware of the complaint’s procedure during their induction. The complaints procedure is available on the intranet and the internet. Any updates will be communicated through the weekly staff bulletin.

Policy text

Definitions

Complaints

Complaints are generally expressions of dissatisfaction or concern that require a resolution or response. These might relate to:

The care of child or young person by a member of staff
Interactions between staff and family
Staff conduct
The organisation
The impact of our site on our neighbours
Poor practise.
Customer service or product issues in our retail outlets.
Timeliness of response to enquiries or issues

Representations

Representations may not always be complaints; they might also be positive remarks or ideas that require a response. Enquiries or comments about the delivery or nature of our service which are not criticisms are likely to constitute representations, for example, children and young people should be able to put forward ideas or proposals about the service they receive or the home they live in, without having this framed as a complaint.

Allegations: Working together to Safeguard children 2018 defines an allegation as follows: An allegation may relate to a person who works with children who has:

Behaved in a way that has harmed a child or may have harmed a child.
Possibly committed a criminal offence against or related to a child
Behaved towards a child or children in a way that indicates they may pose a risk of harm to children.

Child and Vulnerable Adults related complaints

Complaints that are received that relate to a child or vulnerable adult protection issue must be registered in the complaints log, but the details of the complaint shall then be recorded and filed separately in the Safeguarding filing system managed by the Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL). These complaints include:

Physical abuse
Sexual abuse
Emotional abuse
Neglect
Financial
Discriminatory
Organisational

All complaints relating to Child and Vulnerable Adults protection, which include allegations of abuse or neglect to a young person must be referred immediately and directly to the DSL or a member of the safeguarding team. The procedures relating to the processing of a Child and Vulnerable Adult protection issue shall be managed separately to other complaints. These types of complaints shall be handled by designated persons only and shall comply with the Adults at Risk Protection policy and Child protection and safeguarding policy.

The formal complaints stages indicated below do not apply to Child and Vulnerable Adult protection complaints.

Types of complaints

Complaints generally have three phases – receipt of the complaint, investigation of the complaint and response. All phases needed to be handled in an appropriate and timely way and a record made of all phases of the complaint. A fourth phase occurs when the complainant is not content with the outcome and passes it up the line for someone to consider again.

Complaints may be informal or formal. An informal complaint may be a concern or expression of satisfaction where the complainant is not seeking a resolution or specific response, is usually verbal rather than in writing and which may be easily resolved without significant investigation.

A formal complaint is more likely to require a resolution or specific response, is more likely to be in writing than verbal and will require an investigation, and a formal written response is likely to be made.

All complaints whether informal or formal should be documented in terms of the nature of the complaint, actions taken and whether the matter has been resolved.

Receiving a Complaint

Complaints may arrive at the organization in different ways. These include:

By letter to “whom it may concern” or a named person
By email to the general email address or a specific staff email address
By telephone to the main reception number or to a specific person
Verbally face to face to any member of staff or to a specific member of staff
On social media via Facebook, Facebook Messenger or other platforms

Any complaint received by letter or email should be considered a formal complaint. Any complaint received verbally might be considered an informal complaint but may always have the potential to be or become a formal complaint.

Anyone receiving a complaint must ensure that

It is passed to the appropriate manager for that area of work, if that is not the person who received the complaint
Is logged effectively via the complaints co-ordinator. Our complaints co-ordinator is Amanda Gorfin PA the CEO.
All complaints must be logged in the main complaints log and not recorded separately elsewhere.
All documentation pertaining to a complaint must be saved in the specific folder within the complaints folder.
All materials relating to complaints may be subject to a Subject Access Request.

If a young person makes a complaint, InFocus Charity will:

Support the young person to obtain an advocate.
Ensure any information communicated to the young person is appropriate to their age and understanding.

Stages of complaints

Stage 1 – informal process for informal complaints

An informal complaint may be easy to resolve. The complainant may want nothing more than to know that their concern or dissatisfaction has been noted and will be used to improve things in the future. The manager who handles this complaint should:

Acknowledge the complaint within 48 hours if not immediately
Make an assessment of the complaint and whether it warrants further investigation and should be treated as a formal complaint
Where there is no formal investigation needed, respond with an explanation/apology as required
Explain what steps will be taken to improve matters
Log the actions and outcomes with the complaint co-ordinator.
Where required, the actions and outcomes can be put in writing to the complainant, unless they have expressly said they do not require a formal response.

Every complainant at an informal level should be told that they have a right to take the matter further if they are not satisfied with the response and given the name of the person that they should contact.

Stage 2 formal complaint process

Any formal complaint should be passed on to the appropriate manager for the area of work. This may include matters where an informal process has taken place but the complainant is not satisfied.

On receipt of a complaint the manager must check that the complainant feels comfortable talking to them or offer them the opportunity to speak to another member of staff. InFocus Charity will ensure that no person who is the subject of a complaint takes any part in its consideration other than, if the manager dealing with the complaint considers it appropriate.

Acknowledgement and recording

On receiving a formal complaint, the complaint must be logged with the complaints co-ordinator as soon as practicably possible. An acknowledgement letter will be sent to the complainant within 48 hours with a copy of the complaints procedure and acknowledging receipt of the complaint and setting out the timetable for receiving a response.

The manager will have a discussion with the person making the complaint (telephone or face to face) to establish the area of concern/dissatisfaction and the resolution they might seek.

The manager will decide how the matter is to be investigated in discussion with the complaints co-ordinator.

At this stage either

The manager will investigate the concern, agree what actions are to be taken and respond to the complainant in writing, making clear the route for appeal, or
The manager will appoint an investigating officer to carry out an independent investigation and to record and report the facts so that the manager or a more senior manager can make a decision about the complaint

For low level concerns it may be appropriate for the manager to investigate the matter themselves at this stage and report back an outcome and any actions to the complainant.

For more significant complaints, it may be appropriate to pass the management of the complaint to a more senior manager, but this will not always be the case. The manager responsible for the handling complaint will be made clear to the complainant at the outset of the process. Where ever possible the complaint should not be escalated immediately to a director or the CEO

The responsible manager will appoint an Investigating Officer. The investigating officer will be another manager who is not involved in the line management of the service or person whom the complaint is about.

The investigating officer must ensure that the details of the complaint and the complainant’s desired outcome are recorded in writing and agreed with the complainant. This can be done through correspondence or by a meeting. Once finalised this is the date the timescale starts from.

The Investigating Officer will investigate the complaint. The investigation is about collecting together all the facts relating to the matter. The Investigating Officer should have access to all relevant records and staff within the bounds of confidentiality and giving regards to the General Data Protection Regulation 2018 and the Freedom of Information Act 2000. The investigating officer is NOT the decision maker.

The Investigating Officer will write a report outlining the findings of their report, distinguishing between fact, feelings and opinions, and avoiding the use of jargon. The report will include:

Details of findings, conclusions and outcomes against each point of the complaint (i.e. upheld or not upheld).
Recommendations on how to remedy any injustice to the complainant as appropriate.

The investigation should be completed and given to the responsible manager within 10 working days, but where this is impractical it can be extended to 20 working days.

Once the investigation report is received, the responsible manager will consider the complaint, the Investigating Officer’s findings, conclusions and recommendations along with the complainant’s desired outcomes. The responsible manager will prepare an outcome letter, with his/her decision on the complaint, actions to be taken and timescales for implementation. This should happen no later than 5 working days after receiving the investigation report.

It may be appropriate for the manager to meet with the complainant to explain the complaint process and outcome, particularly where the complainant is a child, young person or whom has additional needs. It may or may not be appropriate to share the investigation report in full with the complainant, depending on whether any information contained is required to remain confidential.

The outcome letter will inform the complainant that they have the right to appeal the outcome of the complaint via the appeals process if they feel that the matter has not been suitably or fairly investigated or they feel the outcome or actions has not satisfactory addressed the concern or dissatisfaction.

In rare circumstances it may not be possible to receive, investigate and conclude a complaint process within the stated number of working days. In these cases, the manager will agree a further extension with the complainant, and keep them informed every 5 working days.

Appeal

The complainant must lodge an appeal within 10 working days of receipt of the letter outlining the outcome of the complaint. The complainant shall receive acknowledgement of their request for appeal within 2 days. The appeal needs to be directed to a director or the CEO who will appoint or act as the Appeals Officer.

Simply not liking the outcome itself is not sufficient grounds for appeal. The complainant must set out the grounds for appeal in their appeal letter/notification. The appeal process should not reinvestigate the complaints, nor should it be able to consider any new complaints that have not been first considered at an earlier stage.

Grounds for appeal will usually be:

The process was not followed in a timely or appropriate way which had an impact on the outcome
The complaint has not been sufficiently investigated and matters of significance have been omitted or misunderstood in coming to the outcome
The outcome/actions taken do not sufficiently address the complaint raised

The appeal will normally be dealt with using an Appeal meeting. However, this can also be done as a paper process by mutual agreement if a meeting is not felt appropriate.

The appeal meeting/process must be held within 15 working days of receipt of the notice of appeal. The complainant will be notified of the appeal date and location in writing at least 10 working days before the appeal meeting date.

The appeals officer will chair any appeal meeting. The complainant will be asked to outline their reasons for appeal. The responsible manager will be present and will be asked to set out why they came to the conclusions they did when looking into the original complaint. The investigating officer may also be present/called on to give factual information gathered during their investigation. Anyone may ask questions of others through the chair.

A written account of the meeting will be produced containing a brief summary of the representations. The appeal officer will write to the complainant and set out the outcome i.e. whether the appeal is agreed (complaint outcome overturned) or not agreed (complaint outcome upheld). In either case the Appeal Officer may make new or further recommendations for resolution of the issues. This must be sent to the complainant and all other appropriate parties within 5 working days of the appeal meeting.

The appeal process is the final process within the complaints procedure and the matter cannot be considered again internally.

Raising matters externally

The complainant has the right to also complain to

the commissioner of any service (e.g. local authority, health organisation, other commissioners) ,
to any relevant regulatory body (e.g. Ofsted with regards to education, CQC with regards to adult care, Trading Standards with regards to consumer complaints)
to the relevant Ombudsman at any point of the process.

Ofsted can be contacted on the Ofsted website or telephone 0300 123 4666

CQC can be contacted on the CQC website or telephone 03000 616161.

Withdrawing a complaint

The complaint may be withdrawn verbally or in writing at any time by the complainant by contacting the responsible manager.

Associated documents

Other documents that relate to complaints about the services that InFocus Charity provides include:

DfE’s Getting the Best from Complaints, Social Care Complaints and Representations for Children, Young People and Others.
Children’s Act 1989
Working together to Safeguard children (2018).
South West Child Protection Procedures.
Guidance for Safer Working Practice for Adults who work with Children and young People in Education Settings (Updated April 2020).
General Data Protection Act 2018

This policy should be read in conjunction with the following internal policies:

Child protection and safeguarding policy.
Codes of Conduct.
Adults at risk protection policy.

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