Application to the Renaissance Major Grants programme - making a complaint

Transcription

1 Application to the Renaissance Major Grants programme - making a complaint Introduction Arts Council England is committed to delivering a high quality service to applicants for funding. We take complaints about our service seriously. If we find that we have made a mistake, we will take steps to put thing right and ensure that we improve our service in the future. This document sets out how you can go about making a complaint in relation to your application to receive a Renaissance Major Grant. Making a complaint will not affect in any way the level of service you receive from us and will not affect your chances of successfully applying for a grant from us in the future. This process is unique to your application to become a Renaissance Major Grant recipient. If you want to make a complaint about any other aspect of our delivery, please refer to the Making a complaint document which is available on our website ( What can I complain about? You may be disappointed if we turn down your application for funding, but you cannot use the complaints procedure to appeal against our decision, if we have followed our decision-making process correctly. You can complain if you think that: 1. Maladministration has taken place. For example: we have failed to meet our published deadlines without reasonable cause we did not follow our published procedures for assessing your application

2 we have misunderstood a significant part of your application we did not take account of relevant information we have failed to give you access to information we have given you incorrect advice or information 2. we have not treated you politely 3. we have unlawfully discriminated against you If you can show that maladministration has occurred, we have not treated you politely or we have unlawfully discriminated against you, we will investigate your complaint. If we uphold your complaint, there are a number things we can do to rectify our mistake. We can for example issue you with a formal explanation, an apology and an acknowledgement of our responsibility or we can reassess your application for funding. We will keep all complaints confidential. If you make a complaint we will treat you with respect, and we expect you to treat our staff in the same way. What you cannot complain about: you may be disappointed if we turn down your application for funding, but you cannot use the complaints procedure to appeal against our decision, if we have followed our decision-making process correctly you cannot complain about our published policies or any government policy. If you have any comments about our policies, please send these to our Chief Executive, Alan Davey (contact details below) you cannot use this process to complain about a decision relating to another organisation s application you cannot use this complaints procedure to make a complaint about any fraud you think has taken place. You should report this to our Director, Finance How do I make a complaint? You may not be sure what information you should include or how best to set out your complaint. You should set out the facts as clearly as you can, in a logical order. Remember to include important details and dates where possible. We can give you information about how we will process your complaint. Please contact our

3 Head of Enquiries, whose contact details are given in the Getting in touch section at the end of this document, for further assistance. If you need any help, you can contact your local Citizens Advice Bureau (contact details are in The Phone Book or available at Stage one internal review If you want to make a complaint, please write to; Alan Davey Chief Executive Arts Council England 14 Great Peter Street London SW1P 3NQ chief.executive@artscouncil.org.uk If you require assistance to submit your complaint in an alternative format such as audio tape or CD, please contact our Head of Enquiries, whose contact details are given in the Getting in touch section at the end of this document. You must submit your complaint within 12 weeks of receiving our decision on your application. Please tell us: what happened when it happened who dealt with you what you would like us to do to put things right Also tell us if you would like to be contacted through formats other than letter or (for example, by textphone or on audio tape). We will contact you to say that we have received your complaint within five working days. In due course, we will also tell you who is investigating your complaint and when you can expect a reply. You will receive a reply to your complaint within 20 working days. If we cannot give a full reply in this time, we will tell you why and when you are likely to receive it.

4 Your complaint will initially be considered by a panel of senior Arts Council England staff drawn from different parts of the organisation. The panel will consider whether there are sufficient grounds to investigate a complaint and who is best placed to lead an investigation on behalf of our Chief Executive. The investigating officer will report their findings and recommendations to our Chief Executive who will make the final decision on our response to your complaint. In some cases, it may be appropriate to ask you to come to a meeting with us to discuss your complaint. This meeting would normally be held within 10 working days of us receiving your complaint. We would send you a written record of the meeting as well as a formal reply to your complaint from our Chief Executive. If your complaint is about the way we conduct any other aspect of our business, we will let you know about alternative procedures that may be open to you. Stage two independent review If you are not satisfied with our Chief Executive s reply, you can refer your complaint to the Independent Complaints Reviewer (ICR). You will need to submit your stage two complaint within four weeks of receiving our Chief Executive s reply. The ICR is unbiased and hears both sides of the complaint. The ICR is not part of our organisation and their investigations and recommendations are independent. You can ask our Chief Executive to refer your complaint to the ICR for consideration at stage two. There is no charge for using the ICR. The ICR s office will contact you within five working days of receiving your complaint. The ICR will decide whether or not to investigate a complaint, and will explain their reasons if they decide not to investigate it. If the ICR investigates your complaint and finds that it is justified, they will recommend ways for us to put things right, and how to prevent a similar situation in future. The ICR will report within three months, and usually more quickly. We will normally make any changes the ICR recommends to our current procedures as quickly as possible.

5 The ICR cannot consider complaints that have not gone through the procedure set out in this document. If you want the ICR to consider your complaint, we will need to notify them within four weeks of receiving our Chief Executive s reply. You can ask us to contact the ICR on your behalf. We will make the process for this clear when we respond to you following our stage one internal review. The ICR cannot reverse funding decisions or make comments or changes to our legal responsibilities and policies on awarding grants. Summary timetable Decision letter sent by Arts Council Stage one complaint submitted Stage one acknowledgement Stage one complaint response Stage two complaint submitted Stage two complaint response Within 12 weeks of decision letter Within five working days of receiving your complaint Within 20 working days of receiving your complaint unless we inform you otherwise Within four weeks of receipt of your stage one complaint response Within a minimum of four weeks and a maximum of three months of receipt of your complaint Other ways to make a complaint The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman The Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration (known as the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman) investigates complaints by members of the public who have suffered injustice because of maladministration by public organisations. The Ombudsman also looks at complaints about being refused access to official information. By law, the Ombudsman is independent of the Government and the civil service, and has wide powers to investigate. The Ombudsman does not normally investigate complaints if they have not been through our complaints procedures first.

6 The Ombudsman s services are free. You can get an explanatory leaflet about the Ombudsman see the Getting in touch section at the end of this document. Freedom of information Our publication scheme gives details of what information we make available to the public as a matter of course. If you want information that we do not include in our publication scheme, the Freedom of Information Act 2000 gives you the right to ask us for it. Under the Act, we must provide you with the information you ask for unless it is not covered by the Act (that is, it is exempt ). If the information you want is exempt, we have to tell you why. If you do not agree with us, you should follow stages one and two of the procedures set out in this document. If you are still not satisfied, you may ask the Information Commissioner to review our decision. You can get a copy of our publication scheme by visiting or by phoning To contact the Information Commissioner, see the Getting in touch section at the end of this document. Further information Your personal information If you use our complaints procedure, you are agreeing that we can use any personal information you send us for purposes connected with your complaint. We may also give your personal information to other people and organisations if we have to do so by law or if you have given us permission. Equal opportunities We are committed to equal opportunities and take complaints about discrimination seriously. We may use complaints about discrimination to review our policies and procedures. This is to make sure we treat everyone equally. We may record information about everyone who makes a complaint (ethnic background, gender

7 and if they have a disability or not) so that we promote and maintain our equal opportunities commitment. We will keep this information confidential. Comments and suggestions We welcome comments and suggestions as these can help us improve our services. Please send any comments or suggestions to our Head of Enquiries. The contact details are given in the Getting in touch section below. Getting in touch You can contact our Head of Enquiries at: Head of Enquiries Arts Council England The Hive 49 Lever Street Manchester M1 1FN Phone: enquiries@artscouncil.org.uk Textphone: If you want to comment on government policy on the arts, you can contact: The Department for Culture, Media and Sport 2-4 Cockspur Street London SW1Y 5DH Website: Phone: (general enquiries) enquiries@culture.gsi.gov.uk

8 To get information about the Freedom of Information Act you can contact: The Information Commissioner Wycliffe House Water Lane Wilmslow Cheshire SK9 5AF Phone: Fax: You can get an explanatory leaflet about the Ombudsman from: The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman Millbank Tower Millbank London SW1P 4QP Complaints Helpline Phone: September 2011 You can get this publication in Braille, in large print, on audio CD and in electronic formats. Please contact us if you need any of these formats.