Making A Complaint

Generator uses the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s principles of good complaint handling. This means:

• Getting it right
• Being customer focused
• Being open and accountable
• Acting fairly and proportionately
• Putting things right
• Seeking continuous improvement

Making a complaint will not affect, in any way, the level of service you receive from us nor will it affect the service you receive from us or if applicable the chances of receiving support from us in the future.

We are committed to listening to your concerns and providing an objective and empathetic service. Complaints are usually handled directly by our Deputy CEO. We welcome the opportunity to improve our services through complaints.

If your complaint is not suitable for our process, we will still carefully consider the points you have raised. Our Deputy CEO will explain why your complaint cannot be investigated via our formal process, and where possible provide Generator’s full response to your concerns.

How do I submit my complaint?

You should send your complaint or any questions to complaints@generator.org.uk. If you experience or anticipate any barriers to submitting a complaint, please contact us by calling 07706 329793 or email mail@generator.org.uk

You must submit your complaint to Generator within three months of the action or event to which it relates. If you make a complaint outside of this timeframe then it may not be possible to investigate through this formal process.

What information should I include?

To give us the best chance of resolving your complaint successfully, please tell us:

• what happened,
• when it happened,
• who dealt with you,
• what you would like us to do to put things right.

Please include all the information you feel is relevant and necessary, including any correspondence you have received. Please do not worry if you don’t have all this information, we can fill in the gaps with you before we begin to investigate.

It is important to provide as much relevant information as possible before investigation. Adding material during this process will cause delays and can affect the resolution we offer.

What happens after I have submitted my complaint?

After we have received your complaint we will contact you to acknowledge it. This will happen within ten working days.

If we can identify how and where something may have gone wrong, we are committed to making things right as soon as possible. We call this Early Resolution.

If your concerns require further consideration we will treat your complaint at;

Stage One – Our Deputy CEO will work with you to create the Terms of Reference for your complaint. Once you agree that we fully understand your concerns, we will investigate and respond in writing. Our response will include a copy of the investigation report to ensure transparency. We aim to respond within ten working days of confirming the terms of reference. If we are unable to do so, we will write to you to explain why and when you can expect our response.

If you believe we have failed to investigate sufficiently, not fully addressed your concerns or not provided a fair and proportionate resolution at Stage One, you can ask our Chief Executive to review your complaint at Stage Two. We will explain how to do this in our Stage One response.

Stage Two – Our Chief Executive will appoint an appropriate investigator to address your concerns and create the Terms of Reference for your complaint. Once you agree that they fully understand your concerns, they will investigate and provide the Chief Executive with a report. The Chief Executive will use this report to inform their opinion and write to you explaining their findings and conclusions. We aim to respond within ten working days of confirming the terms of reference. If we are unable to do so, we will write to you to explain why and when you can expect our response.

We are unable to investigate new or unrelated information at Stage Two or bypass the first stage. If you ask us to do this, we must begin the process again at Stage One. This ensures your concerns are addressed fully and in line with our procedures.

If you believe that we have failed to investigate sufficiently or not fully addressed your concerns at Stage Two, you can have your complaint independently reviewed by Arts Council England at Stage Three. We will explain how to do this in our Stage Two response.

What type of resolution can I expect?

If we agree with your complaint, we will uphold or partially uphold it. We will then provide a fair and proportionate resolution. Resolution is unique to the situation you have raised but typically we may apologise, re-enter an application at the point an error is identified or explain how we intend to make improvements.

We are unable to reverse decisions or provide financial compensation as a resolution through this complaints process.

Your personal information

If you use our complaints procedure, we will collect personal data from you to help us consider and respond to your complaint and to help us monitor the quality of our responses. For further information on what personal data we collect, what we do with it and who we may share it with see our General Privacy Notice.

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.