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Complaints, compliments and feedback policy

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Catch22 reserves the right to amend this policy, following consultation, where appropriate.

Date of last review: April 2023

Date of next review: June 2024

Summary

This policy:

  • safeguards the rights of individuals using our services, and ensures we improve services by learning from our errors and successes
  • covers people who receive our services, people (other than our own staff) involved in the care or welfare of our service users, and any other organisation or individual on whom our services impact
  • looks at making a complaint, the three complaint stages (local/informal complaint resolution, organisational/formal complaint resolution and panel hearing/appeals), in what circumstances we might suspend or not apply this policy, and related policies.

What is the policy about?

We welcome and support people to make complaints, comments and compliments about our services. A complaint is an expression of dissatisfaction with our services and a request for us to put things right. Comments and compliments can be as valuable as complaints in highlighting areas for improvement or extending excellence in service provision. Our policy safeguards the rights of individuals using our services, and ensures we improve services by learning from our errors and successes.

Who is the policy for?

Our policy covers:

  • people who receive our services
  • our people other than our own staff* involved in the care or welfare of our service users (*sessional workers, volunteers, agency staff and contractors (these are not employees and therefore not covered by the Grievance Policy)
  • any other organisation or individual on whom our services impact.

Complaints from our own employees are dealt with in line with other relevant policies (see section 12), for example our grievance policy.

Complaints in a prison setting are dealt with under the Prison Procedure which is attached at Appendix A.

Complaints in a school setting are dealt with under the Education Complaints Procedure.

Complaints in our Employability services (G4S) are dealt with under the agreed procedure which is attached at Appendix B.

Complaints relating to IR35 can be found on attached at Appendix C.

– Appendices can be found in the full policy document via the links at the bottom of this page.

Policy statement

We are committed to:

  • improving the lives of all the people we work with, and to working with their families and carers, communities and other organisations to achieve this
  • providing the best possible services for everyone we work with
  • learning from our mistakes, and continuing to improve on what we do

Our handling of complaints and comments forms an important part of this approach. As part of our philosophy, we seek to deal positively and decisively with issues of concern, and so we:

  • treat anyone making a complaint, comment or compliment with respect
  • support anyone wishing to make a complaint to do so, keeping them informed of the process at all stages
  • deal with all complaints as swiftly as possible, and maintain confidentiality as far as possible
  • train all our staff to use this policy
  • encourage managers to try to resolve complaints locally and informally, in discussion with the person making the complaint
  • treat fairly staff about whom a complaint is made, in line with our employment policies
  • review the effectiveness of our policy, and monitor the level and nature of complaints, comments and compliments
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