Whirlow Spirituality Centre Complaints Policy

Whirlow Spirituality Centre (WSC) considers feedback from worshippers, participants, staff, volunteers and hirers to be crucial to the development and quality of the events, worship and facilities that we offer. We seek to gather feedback about how participants experience our events, courses and retreats, what they feel is beneficial, and what might be further developed. We understand that, at times, people may wish to complain about WSC and the work and service that we undertake.

WSC aims to handle all complaints in a fair and timely fashion. We welcome feedback and complaints where necessary to help us improve our events and facilities. Individuals may make a complaint whatever their relationship to WSC.

This policy covers:

1.    Complaints about our worship, events, courses and retreats

2.    Complaints about the conduct of our staff and volunteers.

3.    Complaints about other services provided by WSC (e.g hire of facilities)

The satisfaction of those who use our centre and our services is of great importance to WSC, and it is hoped that the majority of complaints can be dealt with on an informal basis. WSC will use the attached procedure to deal with complaints in a straightforward and transparent manner. WSC requests that complainants provide full details of their complaint so that the issues raised can be fully investigated.

Policy Last Reviewed September 2024

 Next revision date September 2025

Reviewed by: Chair of board of trustees

Contact us: If you have any queries about the contents of the policy, please contact the Chaplain chaplain@whirlowspiritualitycentre.org

Whirlow Spirituality Centre Complaints Procedure

Informal Stage

It is hoped that the majority of complaints can be handled informally. This can help resolve an issue quickly and directly. Complainants may initiate the informal process in the following ways:

•         By speaking directly to the leader of the event, course or worship, or to the Chaplain.

•         By contacting chaplain@whirlowspiritualitycentre.org describing the issue or concern. The email will be acknowledged and responded to within 5 working days unless the Chaplain is away from the office, which will be notified by an out of office message. A log of informal complaints and responses to these will be kept by the Chaplain and reviewed by the board of trustees quarterly. This will be kept in a location with restricted access and only accessible by those who need to log or review complaints.

Formal Stage

A complainant may choose this route either:

•         If they have tried to resolve the complaint informally and do not feel this has been resolved satisfactorily or

•         if they consider that the informal route is not appropriate.

In both cases full details of the complaint should be sent to admin@whirlowspiritualitycentre.org with the subject given as Confidential Complaint. The complaint should be submitted within 10 days of the concern occurring unless there is a reason why this cannot happen.

Please ensure that you provide your full name, contact details including a daytime telephone number along with:

•         a full description of your complaint (including the subject matter and dates and times if known)

•         any names of the people you have dealt with so far

•         copies of any materials, emails or letters to do with the complaint.

Our Privacy Policy, which can be seen on our website, explains how we use and protect your information. Sometimes a complainant will wish to remain anonymous. However, it is always preferable to reveal your identity and contact details to us, and, if you are concerned about possible adverse consequences, please inform us that you do not wish us to divulge your identity. Whilst we are prepared to investigate issues which are reported to us anonymously we will always try to confirm an allegation by means of a separate investigation before taking up the matter with those to whom the complaint/allegation relates.

We will acknowledge receipt of your complaint within 5 working days (unless the Administration and Operations Coordinator is away, in which case a response time will be indicated in their out of office message), letting you know who is investigating your complaint. The Chair of trustees will be responsible for ensuring the investigation is carried out in a prompt and effective manner and in accordance with the procedures in this policy and will either investigate the matter or allocate a relevant member of staff or a member of the board of trustees to lead the investigation. At all times we will ensure that WSC personnel assigned to the investigation have the appropriate level of training and competence and that they have had no previous involvement or personal interest in the matter – other than initial contact acknowledging the complaint and explaining our procedures to the complainant. If the Chair of trustees has had previous involvement in the complaint matter they will not be responsible for allocating a member of staff or trustee to carry out the investigation or for overseeing and managing the investigation, and another trustee will do this. We aim to investigate the complaint within 15 working days. If your complaint is more complex or involves people who are not available at the time, we may need to extend this. We may contact you within this period to seek further information or clarification (in some instances we may recommend a meeting). At the end of the investigation we will write/email to inform you of our conclusion. If any part of your complaint is upheld we will, of course, respond accordingly and give due consideration to how we can improve our services and arrangements. Examples of the kind of arrangements we may implement as a result of an upheld complaint may include:

•         Offering a refund if we discover that the event or service offered was not as advertised or significantly lacking in some way

•         Undertaking appropriate staff or volunteer induction or training as required to prevent the complaint matter from reoccurring

•         Reviewing our resources or practices to assess the impact on the services we provide

•         In extreme circumstances, internal disciplinary procedures may be exercised where the performance or behaviour of our staff is deemed inappropriate.

In situations where a complaint has been successful, or where an investigation indicates a failure in our expected standards, we will give due consideration to the outcome and will take appropriate actions such as:

•         identifying any other person or organisation who has been affected by the failure

•         correcting, or where it cannot be corrected, mitigating as far as possible the effect of the failure

•         reviewing and amending our arrangements, where appropriate, to reduce the likelihood that the failure will reoccur in the future

If your complaint or concern relates to a safeguarding matter please see our safeguarding policy, which can be accessed on our website.

Records of Complaints and Appeals

WSC will keep a confidential record of all formal complaints for 7 years. The Chair of trustees will present a summary report of all formal complaints to the quarterly board of trustees meeting.