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COMMUNITY ACTION PARTNERSHIP
Complaints Policy
Date policy produced: April 2014
Date policy due for review: August 2028
Produced by: Neil Baker
Reviewed by: Suzanna Bresnihan
Mari Mark
Jan 2026
​General aims of the policy:
• To acknowledge the importance and value of complaints from our customers.
• To ensure that feedback is handled in a manner that supports Community Action Partnerships approach to providing customer focused services and with any other relevant legal and policy requirements.
• To provide a clear route by which customers can feedback about the service they have received from the Community Action Partnership.
• To ensure feedback is dealt with fairly, promptly and sensitively.
• To learn from our successes and mistakes; to use feedback from customers to continuously improve our services.
• To enhance the overall image of Community Action Partnership and its employees and volunteers in the eyes of service users and the citizens of Leicestershire.
Introduction
Community Action Partnership (Leicestershire) welcomes all feedback from customers on how our services can be improved. Whilst much of this policy focuses on customer complaints, it is recognised that staff frequently receive compliments and letters of appreciation. These positive comments are highly valued by the charity as evidence of its commitment to providing excellent customer service.
On some occasions however customers may not be satisfied with a decision made by Community Action Partnership, the provision of a service or an action taken on an individual case. This document sets out our corporate complaints policy.
The provisions of this policy will apply across all Community Action Partnership services and all relevant feedback will be dealt with in accordance with it.
This policy will be openly publicised throughout the charity.
Community Action Partnership will deal with complaints fairly, thoroughly and sensitively and aim to address any problems raised by customers at the earliest stage possible. Staff will be empowered to try and solve any difficulties reported by a customer without recourse to the formal procedure.
Related Policy Areas:
Equality and Diversity Policy and Procedures Adult Safeguarding Policy
Child Protection Policy
Quality Management Statement
COMPLAINTS POLICY
Definition of a complaint
“An expression of dissatisfaction about a Community Action Partnership service (whether that service is provided directly by the charity or by a contractor or partner) that requires a response.”
Listed below are the categories of complaints which fall within the procedure and those which are excluded:
Categories of Complaint:
• Failure to follow agreed Community Action Partnership procedure, policy, rules or standards of service.
• Failure to take account of relevant matters in coming to a decision.
• Neglect or unjustified delay.
• Inappropriate behaviour of a council employee or someone acting on the council's behalf.
• Malice, bias or discrimination
Exclusions
• Complaints against individual employees which arise from dissatisfaction with a corporate policy or board decision, and where no other basis for the complaint exists.
• Complaints which constitute a refusal to accept a rule of law which Community Action Partnership is applying.
Data Protection Related Complaints
Data Protection related complaints should be treated in the same way as other complaints. Where a breach has occurred this should also be reported following our formal complaints procedure.
Complaints about discrimination
In the case of complaints about discrimination concerning the protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010 (i.e. race, religion or belief, disability, sexual orientation and gender identity) a discrimination reporting form is publicly available via the organisation website or in paper form via the office. Reports of discrimination should be sent directly to the Chief Officer. Timescales for discrimination based reporting follow the same timescale as that set out in the level 3 formal complaint reporting procedure. Where a complaint relates to a hate related crime, Community Action Partnership will encourage usage of hate crime reporting procedures. Discrimination report forms are available (see appendix B).
How can customers make a complaint?
Complaints can be made by any method of contact, a customer should not be told that Community Action Partnership will only accept a complaint if it is put in writing.
However when an issue reaches Level 2 of the complaints process the scope of the complaint will be formally agreed with the customer and customers will be encouraged to put their complaint in writing or verbal recording (see appendix A). Appropriate support will be given where needed to do this.
Community Action Partnership is committed to working within the Equality Act 2010 and will make facilities available to assist customers in making a complaint including home visits and information being made available in other formats as necessary.
Overview of the complaints procedure
IMPORTANT - Where a complaint relates to a safeguarding issue for vulnerable adults or a child, the complaint will be dealt with under safeguarding policies and
procedures.
Level 1 - Resolving problems informally
All Community Action Partnership staff should be empowered to resolve customer problems at the point of service delivery without recourse to the formal complaints procedure (Stage 2). Where a complaint is made regarding the conduct of volunteer a member of staff will act on behalf of the volunteer in resolving the issue.
If a complaint cannot be resolved at the point of service delivery the service concerned should deal with it as a formal complaint.
Level 2 - Formal complaints relating to service delivery
1. A complaint should ideally be made in writing/email or via the complaint form (see appendix A).
2. The complaint should be logged by the manager responsible and the complainant advised the complaint has been received within 5 working days.
3. A senior manager within the service which is the subject of the complaint should deal with the complaint and inform the customer of their decision within 28 days.
4. A paper trail of any interviews or enquiries should be attached to the complaint
5. The complainant should be advised of any further steps which they may take if they are not satisfied with the decision.
6. Face to face meetings to discuss the complaint can be helpful and help resolve the issue without the need for further investigation. Managers should always seek to agree a resolution.
Where a customer seeks a review of the outcome of their complaint, the manager involved may look at the case again or refer the case to the board for independent review.
A reply to a Level 2 & 3 complaint should contain:
• A summary of the complaint
• Steps taken to investigate the complaint
• The decision and reasons for it
• Reference to whether the organisation upholds, partly upholds or does not uphold the customer’s complaint
• An apology where appropriate
• Information on any action that is going to be taken to resolve the problem
• Details of any service improvements as a result of the complaint
• Details of further stages of appeal if the customer remains dissatisfied
Level 3 – Complaints regarding staff conduct, discrimination or policy breaches
1. The review should be undertaken by the Chief Officer (unless they are the subject of the complaint) in which case the complaint should be dealt with by a trustee board member.
2. The complainant should be advised of any further steps which they may take if they are not satisfied with the outcome of the review of their complaint, in that they may refer their complaint to an appropriate governing board member.
3. Complaints should be acknowledged and replied to on the basis of the format of the original complaint (e.g. an email complaint should be responded to by email).
4. All complaints should be acknowledged within 5 working days of receipt.
5. All complaints should be responded to within 10 working days of initial receipt. This can take the form of a full reply to the complaint or an interim response where investigation of the complaint is needed (e.g. Staff conduct or discrimination)
6. Where an interim response has been provided it should indicate when a full reply could reasonably be expected.
7. If it takes more than 28 working days to respond to a complaint the customer should be kept informed of progress.
8. A formal response to the complaint should be issued in writing.
Complaint Form
Please use this form to tell us about your complaint – so we can see if we’re able to help you. If you’re not sure about anything – or have difficulties filling in this form – just phone us on 0116 288 7482.
Please let us know if you have any practical needs where we could help – for example with information in another format (eg large print) or in a different language.
You can download this form here to
complete by hand. Or you can fill it in on screen –
then print it off and post it back to us.
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