Complaints policy
Association of Chairs Complaints Policy
Association of Chairs is committed to providing an excellent service to its members, the wider governance community and to other stakeholders working in an open and accountable way that builds trust and respect.
We aim to deliver quality, value for money and results to everyone we work with. Despite our best endeavours, we may not always achieve this. In these circumstances, we want to ensure our customers and partner agencies have access to an effective complaints policy.
Our commitment to you:
- We will ensure you know how to complain by publishing a complaints policy that is easy to access and easy to understand.
- We will listen to you and seek to understand the cause of your complaint.
- We will respond quickly and show commitment to resolving the issue in partnership with you.
- We are committed to fairness and transparency when dealing with complaints.
- We are committed to using feedback to learn and improve.
Stage 1
If you are unhappy or dissatisfied with any aspect of your involvement with Association of Chairs, please let us know by talking or writing to us. There may be a specific person you wish to discuss your complaint with; in these circumstances please direct your communication accordingly. Otherwise, your first port of call should be [email protected] or call 020 7898 9731. We aim to respond to your complaint within 5 working days. (The response time reflects the fact we are a small team and all our team members work part-time.)
To help us process your complaint quickly please provide us with all relevant information, including your views on what could be done to resolve the matter to your satisfaction. We hope that at this early stage we will be able to resolve the matter by talking, sharing information, listening and reaching a point of mutual agreement. We will contact you with the outcome of your complaint within 10 working days.
Stage 2
If you are dissatisfied with the conclusion of Stage 1 please send an email titled ‘Complaint’ explaining your complaint within 10 working days of being notified of the outcome from Stage 1 and send to:
Liz Lowther, Interim Chief Executive, Association of Chairs [email protected]
At this stage we will explain who is handling your complaint – we call this person the Complaint Investigator and they will be a member of Association of Chairs’ board of trustees. At the same time, we will explain the timescale and process for resolving the matter. The investigator will contact you to acknowledge receipt of your complaint within 5 working days. The investigator may want to talk to you, gather more information and liaise with colleagues. They will produce a final report explaining conclusions within 20 working days of receiving the complaint.
Stage 3
If you are still concerned your complaint has not been resolved following Stage 2, please address your concerns in writing within 7 working days of receiving the conclusion of Stage 2 and send to:
Joe Saxton, Chair, Association of Chairs
Please give your reasons for appealing the decision taken at Stage 2 and again, if possible, the action you are seeking to resolve the matter to your satisfaction. The Chair of Association of Chairs will review the complaint history and consider your case for appeal. At this stage, the Chair may seek further information through a meeting or additional correspondence. The Chair will aim to provide written acknowledgement of your complaint within 5 days and will produce a report summarising conclusions within 30 working days. This is the final stage of our internal complaints procedure and the Chair’s decision will be final. Our response times for Stage 2 and 3 reflect the fact our trustees and Chair are volunteers.
Recording
We will record details of any complaint received by Association of Chairs, including the nature of the complaint and outcome. Complaint information will be reported to the Association of Chairs board of trustees periodically for quality monitoring purposes. We aim to learn from complaints to prevent reoccurrence.