Part 1 – Policy

1. General Principles

York Learning and City of York Council is committed to excellent customer service and to securing customer satisfaction in the way it responds to complaints and feedback from any of its service users. The Council will ensure it delivers a better service to its customers by monitoring and measuring complaints, concerns, compliments and comments. It will follow a standard procedure to achieve greater consistency in how it deals with complaints and feedback.

City of York Council will collect information on complaints and feedback so that it knows which areas of service customers are most satisfied /dissatisfied with. This enables a closer look at whether to change aspects of the service and/or offer training and support for staff to improve services as well as ensure that staff dealing with complaints are appropriately trained and supported.

City Of York Council will demonstrate that it listens to its customers’ views and feeds them into service development. Gathering information on complaints and checking responses to them is one way we will do this.

City Of York Council wishes to be responsive to complaints made by members of the public; it views complaints as a valuable form of feedback. Therefore, a formal Customer Complaints and Feedback Policy and Procedure will ensure that a complaint is fully investigated in a systematic and comprehensive manner and will ensure that it is able to mirror the lessons about good practice in complaints handling by learnt from statutory complaints procedures by being linked closely with them. Fundamentally, all complaints will be dealt with in accordance with this policy and complainants should be advised about this.

City Of York Council will ensure that its feedback and complaints system:

• is easily accessible and understandable via one central function;
• is acknowledged and published as a model for developing good practice;
• ensures a thorough and fair investigation within set time-scales;
• provides an effective response and appropriate redress;
• is independent from service provision; provides feedback to management so that areas of dissatisfaction can be improved;
• keeps complainants informed of progress;
• is fully understood by all staff.

2. Guidelines for Learners

Dear Learner

We hope that you enjoy and benefit from the course you have chosen. If however, you should have any cause for complaint, we would like to know about it so that we can take action to improve the situation. Tutors and centre staff are committed to providing the best learning experience they can, so it is important that they know when things go wrong.
The procedure for making a complaint is as follows:

In the first instance, talk to the person who is directly involved. This is usually the best way of resolving a problem.

• If it is a complaint about the course, you should speak to the tutor
• If it is a complaint about the centre, you should speak to the Centre Staff
• If you are unable or unwilling to talk to the person who is directly involved, or if you are unhappy with their response when you do, you should contact the next person in the line of responsibility, in other words:

If you prefer to make your complaint in writing, you can ask for a Complaints Form to complete and send in. These forms are available in the Community Education Office at the centre hosting your course. Any complaints to the Head of Service should be made in writing and returned in an envelope marked “Private and Confidential” to:

The Head of York Learning
West Offices
Station Rise
York,
YO1 6GA

Whoever receives your complaint will investigate further and you will receive a written response within 10 working days. In supporting or rejecting your complaint, reasons will be given in writing.
If you feel your complaint has not be satisfactorily resolved it will be escalated in line with the City of York’s policy in dealing with complaints. Further information can be found on the City of York Council website by clicking here.

Issue 6