Service Complaints Policy & Procedure

 

Introduction

Mantrailing UK Ltd aims to provide the highest standards of service and to get things right. The complaints that we receive help us to better understand how we are doing, lessons we can learn and the improvements we can make. We are committed to listening to our service users, acknowledging concerns and putting things right where appropriate. The purpose of this Complaints Policy is to outline how to make a complaint.

 

Who we are?

Mantrailing UK Ltd Mantrailing UK Ltd provides a dog sport that teaches dogs and their handlers to find people for fun. We also offer Mantrailing Instructor courses.

Employees and instructors are required to adhere to the highest standards of conduct. The code of conduct outlines the purpose, powers and duties of Mantrailing UK Ltd, and the standards required from employees and instructors. The Complaints Procedure provides the framework to resolve any departure from these standards and will be followed when there are any allegations of a breach of the Code of Conduct.

 

The objectives of Mantrailing UK Ltd complaints policy and procedures are to:

• ensure everyone knows how to make a complaint and how a complaint will be handled

• ensure that complaints are dealt with consistently, fairly and sensitively within clear time frames

• provide individuals with a fair and effective way to complain about our work

• ensure that complaints are monitored to improve our services

 

Mantrailing UK Ltd will ensure that we:

• listen carefully to complaints and treat complaints as confidential, where possible

• record, store and manage all complaints accurately and in accordance with the Data Protection Act

• investigate the complaint fully, objectively and within the stated time frame

• notify the complainant of the results of the investigation and any right of appeal

• inform the complainant of any action that will be implemented in order to ensure that there is no re-occurrence

 

Definition of a complaint

A complaint is any expression of dissatisfaction by an individual, whether justified or not.

An individual may make a complaint if they feel Mantrailing UK Ltd or an employee/instructor has:

• Failed to provide a service or an acceptable standard of service or made a mistake in the way the service was provided

• Failed to act in a proper way

• Provided an unfair service

 

This policy and procedure relate only to complaints received about Mantrailing UK Ltd and its services.

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What Can I Complain About?

You can complain about misconduct. Our staff and members have Codes of Conduct. Please read them if you are thinking of making a complaint about personal misconduct.

Some examples of the type of things we can investigate are shown below:

• The use of racist, sexist or offensive language

• Failure to declare a potential conflict of interest

• Bullying or rudeness

• Unprofessional conduct

• Sexual harassment

 

You can complain about poor service, which may include concerns about delay, discourtesy or a failure to follow proper procedures.

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Concern or Complaint

It is important to establish the difference between a concern and a complaint. Taking informal concerns seriously at the earliest stage will reduce the likelihood of their developing into formal complaints.

If you have any concerns about our work, please contact us as soon as possible, so that we can quickly understand your concerns and try to put things right.

If you are not happy with the response to your concern and/or you want to make a formal complaint, please follow the procedure below.

 

Complaints

We consider a complaint to be a formal expression of dissatisfaction about any aspect of our service by a person who has been directly involved in the service complained of. We take complaints seriously. We will respond to complaints effectively and deal with them sensitively, fairly and thoroughly. We will not treat any complainant less favourably on the basis of their gender, sexual orientation, race or ethnicity, disability or religion or belief or as a consequence of having made a complaint.

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When Should I Make My Complaint?

A complaint should be made as soon as possible when the issues are still fresh in everyone’s minds; the later the complaint is made, the more difficult it will be to investigate. Formal complaints must be made within 6 months of the event.

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Reasons we may refuse your complaint

If your concern is about the actions or service of a different organisation and we have no involvement in the issue, we will refuse your request and signpost you to the other organisation to complain.

 

There are also situations where we may decide that we won’t look into your complaint further, even though it is a ‘service complaint’. These include:

• attempts to reopen a previously concluded complaint or to have a complaint reconsidered where we have already given you our final decision

• where we have already looked into the matter for you under another process

• anonymous complaints

• where the time-limit for complaining has passed, and

• if we think the complaint is unreasonable

 

 

How to make a Complaint

If you wish to make a formal complaint, please use the complaints form if at all possible which can be filled out by clicking HERE. If you are unable to use the online form you can send us an email, please ensure that your email is headed “Complaint” and is addressed to:

 

email: info@mantrailingglobal.com

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What Should I Say in My Complaint?

This will depend on the nature of your complaint. It will be helpful if you can summarise your complaint on the form provided and give specific details of the poor service issues you are raising. Please let us know if there is anyone who can provide further relevant evidence relating to your complaint. If you are complaining about a breach of our Codes of Conduct, please try to tell us which parts of the Code you think have been breached. Let us know if you have any particular communication needs, for example if you have a disability which impacts on your ability to communicate or if you require assistance with reading and/or writing.

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Reasonable adjustments and alternative formats

Our aim is to make our policy easy to use and accessible for everyone. We will take steps to make any reasonable adjustments needed to access this policy, or any requests to provide responses in other formats

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Reasonable adjustments and alternative formats

Our aim is to make our policy easy to use and accessible for everyone. We will take steps to make any reasonable adjustments needed to access this policy, or any requests to provide responses in other formats.

If you are unable to submit your complaint online because of a disability and need a reasonable adjustment, please call us on: 44 (0)7555 806904 or send an email to: info@mantrailingglobal.com

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Advocacy support

Advocacy agencies may be able to support you through the complaint process and help you to express your views and wishes.

If you need support in making a complaint, we are happy to receive your complaint from:

• an advice or advocacy agency

• professionals (such as social workers, community psychiatric nurses, doctors or solicitors)

• MPs and elected councillors

• family members or friends.

 

After your advocate has written to us, we will let them know if we need your consent for us to speak to them.

 

The Complaints Process

Mantrailing UK Ltd aims to settle the majority of complaints quickly and satisfactorily by the member of staff who provides the service. The complaint may be resolved quickly by way of an apology or by an acceptable explanation to the individual.

There are three stages to the complaint’s procedure:

• Stage One – the complaint

• Stage Two – investigation

• Stage Three – appeal

 

You can expect to be treated with courtesy, respect and fairness at all times. We expect that you will also treat our staff dealing with your complaint with the same courtesy, respect and fairness. We will not tolerate threatening, abusive or unreasonable

behaviour by any complainant.

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Stage 1

The complaint will be registered by the Company and an acknowledgement sent back to you or your representative within 7 days of the complaint being received by Mantrailing UK Ltd.

A full response to the complaint will be provided by the Company within 20 working days of receipt of the complaint. We are committed to trying to resolve complaints as quickly as possible, therefore, in straightforward complaints it may be possible for the Company to respond sooner.

 

Stage 2

We may need to investigate complaints that are complex or require information to be obtained from third parties. In these types of complaints, we will need to share the details of your complaint with the person or people who you have complained about, so that we can take account of the views of everyone involved. If we also need more information from you, we will let you know.

If it is not possible to conclude the full investigation within 20 working days, we will contact you to explain why there is a delay and to give you an estimate of how long it will take us to respond in full. In our final reply we will let you know what we have found and explain how and why we came to our conclusions. The final reply will:

• Summarise your complaint

• Address the points you have raised

• Say what the outcome is including whether your complaint is upheld, not upheld or partly upheld

• If appropriate, explain what measures are being taken in response to your complaint

• Give you details about how you can take the matter further if you are not happy with the outcome or the way in which the complaint has been handled.

 

Stage 3

If you are not happy with the response you have received at stage 1 or 2 of the complaints process you can write to our office and ask for a review.

A full response to the complaint will be provided within 20 working days of receipt of the complaint.

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Remedies

When we get things wrong, we will act to:

• accept responsibility and apologise

• explain what went wrong and why, and

• put things right by making any changes required

• learn lessons from mistakes and change policies and practices where proportionate and sensible to do so

 

The action we take to put matters right (i.e., redress) in response to a service complaint can include any combination of the remedies set out in the list below. The general principle we follow is that complainants should, so far as possible, be put in the position they would have been in, had things not gone wrong.

The remedy applied needs to be proportionate and appropriate to the failure in service and take into account what redress people seek when they complain. An apology is generally the most appropriate action, but other action may also be necessary in some circumstances.

 

List of remedies

• A full apology, explaining what happened and/or what went wrong. (An apology is not an acceptance of liability under Section 2 of the Compensation Act 2006)

• Remedial action, which may include reviewing or changing a decision on the service given to an individual complainant

• Provide the service required in first instance (immediately, if appropriate)

• Putting things right (for example a change of procedure to prevent future difficulties of a similar kind, either for the complainant or others)

• Training or supervising staff; or a combination of both

• If the complaint is against a self-employed Instructor, we may decide not to use their services.

 

What can I do if I am still not satisfied?

If you remain dissatisfied with the outcome of your complaint, or the way in which it was dealt with, you can write to the Director, Lisa Gorenflo -  info@mantrailingglobal.com

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Instructor Complaints and Mantrailing UK Ltd’s response

Upon investigation of a valid complaint to an individual instructor Mantrailing UK Ltd will enforce one of several responses depending on the severity of the complaint made against them.  

Mantrailing UK Ltd’s response to the complaint could be as follows:

• Written warnings for conduct, which will outline the reasons for the warning.

• A maximum of 3 written warnings in a 12-month period will automatically result in removal from Mantrailing UK Ltd.

• Upon receiving the third warning the instructor involved will be removed from any association with Mantrailing UK Ltd.

• Full immediate removal from Mantrailing UK Ltd.

This is defined as total removal of and association with Mantrailing UK Ltd and any of this subsequent related companies. Association means using our logos, associated wording, content and anything which the public may relate you to Mantrailing UK Ltd for.

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Logging and learning from complaints

Complaint details, outcomes and actions taken are recorded by us and used for service improvement. We record all complaints we receive and collate data from them to help us understand what types of problems are most prevalent, and how well we are doing to resolve them.

We value your feedback and expect to use it to help us to:

• get things right in the future if we have not done so already

• become more customer/service user focused

• be more open and accountable

• act fairly and proportionately

• seek continuous improvement

We will handle your information so that it is only processed and retained appropriately and legally, in line with data protection legislation.

 

Data protection

To process a complaint Mantrailing UK Ltd will hold personal data about the complainant, which the individual provides, and which other people give in response to the complaint. We will hold this data securely and only use it to address the complaint. The identity of the person making the complaint will only be known to those who need to consider the complaint and will not be revealed to other people or made public. However, it may not be possible to preserve confidentiality in some circumstances, for example, where relevant legislation applied or allegations are made which involve the conduct of third parties.

Mantrailing UK Ltd will normally destroy complaints files in a secure manner six years after the complaint has been closed.