Complaints Policy

1. Introduction

While our desire is to encourage and build one another up in order to honour, obey and glorify God, we recognise that there are times when things go wrong. Being accountable for our actions and learning and growing from mistakes are also very important kingdom principles, and ones we hold dear.

If you have any concerns or complaints about the behaviour or actions of any member of the staff team or one of our serving partners, please let them know so they have the opportunity to discuss those with you and to learn from any mistakes.

If you feel unable to speak to the staff member or ministry leader directly, please let us know by contacting the All Souls Head of People and Culture, Natasha Rayan (natasha.rayan@allsouls.org), and/or Chair of the ASSTC Board of Trustees. We are part of the All Souls Church family and seek to reflect a similar ethos in the ministries of ASSTC.

As a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO), we consider this complaints policy to be very important. Before raising a formal concern through this procedure, we would expect and encourage you to seek resolution informally.

 

2. Policy

This policy may be used by anyone who wishes to complain about the conduct of any All Souls Serve The City CIO staff member or serving partner. The scope is limited to complaints associated with the activities of ASSTC and not disputes between serving partners.

  1. Any comments or complaints about ministry decisions, events or services should be made direct to the relevant lead staff member as they fall outside the scope of this policy.
  2. This policy should not be used by ASSTC staff. If any staff member of All Souls Serve The City CIO wishes to complain about the conduct of another staff member, they should use the Grievance Procedure as set out in the Staff Handbook. Any ASSTC Trustee who has concerns under these categories must raise that with the Chair of Trustees.
  3. This policy should not be used where there is a safeguarding concern. In such instances, the concerns should be reported in accordance with our Safeguarding Policy - link . If there is uncertainty as to whether something constitutes a safeguarding concern, the Parish Safeguarding Officer should be contacted in the first instance (see contact details here).
  4. If the complaint is about significant malpractice or wrongdoing that is in the wider public interest (for example, a criminal offence or a breach of a legal duty), we would encourage you to contact the Diocese or the Police.
  5. All Souls Serve The City CIO will treat all complaints seriously and will deal with them without recrimination.

Complaints should be reported as soon as possible so that they can be investigated promptly.

There are three stages in raising a complaint:

  1. Stage 1 - Informal complaint
  2. Stage 2 - Formal complaint
  3. Stage 3 - Review

If you have any questions about this process, please contact the Head of People & Culture, Natasha Rayan (natasha.rayan@allsouls.org) by email.

 

3. Stage 1 - Informal complaint

In the first instance and where possible, we encourage you to speak directly, either by email or face-to-face, with the staff member or serving partner involved and to provide them with the opportunity to resolve any complaints informally. Where complaints are of such a substantial nature that further contact with the staff member or serving partner involved would be inappropriate or potentially harmful, a formal complaint should be submitted - see below.

Where an informal complaint is appropriate, please seek to raise any issue early and ideally within two weeks of the matter arising. Issues dealt with informally at an early stage have a better chance of being resolved without escalation to formal stages of the process.

We hope that, in the vast majority of situations, complaints will be fully resolved at this stage, perhaps by a staff member or serving partner providing further clarification or explanation, or by apologising and making amends.

 

4. Stage 2 - Formal Complaint

Where informal complaints are not dealt with satisfactorily, or where complaints are of such a substantial nature that further contact with the staff member or serving partner involved would be inappropriate or potentially harmful, a formal complaint should be submitted.

This procedure should be used to report complaints about the conduct of our staff or serving partners. Any comments or complaints about ministry decisions, events or services should be made direct to the relevant lead staff member or serving partner as they fall outside the scope of this policy.

Any complaint should be submitted in writing (by post or email) to The Head of People and Culture, Natasha Rayan (All Souls Church, 2 All Souls Place, W1B 3DA or natasha.rayan@allsouls.org) and you should clearly state that you want your complaint to be handled under the Complaints Procedure.

The complaint should set out:

We will aim to acknowledge receipt of your written complaint within 14 days.

All reports will be processed in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

 

Clergy Discipline Measure

The Clergy Discipline Measure 2003, supplemented by the Clergy Discipline Rules 2005 (as amended) and the Clergy Discipline Measure 2003 Code of Practice issued by the Clergy Discipline Commission, provides a comprehensive scheme for dealing with allegations of misconduct by ordained (Church of England) clergy which are serious in nature or where members of the clergy are said to have fallen below the very high standards required and expected of them. The Measure is concerned with formal disciplinary proceedings which have been instituted in accordance with the law. It is not a ‘complaints’ or ‘grievance’ procedure.

You may choose to use the All Souls procedures or the Clergy Discipline Measure to make a formal complaint against ordained (Church of England) clergy. The Church of England website has details about the Clergy Discipline Measure (CDM).

 

4.1 Confidentiality

All complaints submitted under this procedure will be handled sensitively. We make every effort only to reveal identifying information where necessary to those involved in investigating your complaint, which may include sharing your name with the person against whom the complaint is made.

If you wish your complaint to be investigated without sharing identifying information, please notify us at the point at which you make your formal complaint and include details as to why you are requesting this. It is more difficult to investigate complaints without sharing identifying information.

 

4.2 Investigation

All complaints and concerns raised under this procedure will be investigated, as long as you provide us with your contact details so that we can request further information from you (where necessary) and so that we can notify you of the outcome of the investigation.

A line manager or senior manager will assign an investigator. The investigator should be somebody not involved in the case, for example another manager, a trustee or someone from HR. The role of the investigator is to be fair and objective so they can establish the essential facts.

The amount of any investigation required will depend on the nature of the allegations and will vary from case to case. You may be invited to a meeting to discuss the nature of your complaint without the presence of the person being complained against, unless you agree to their attendance and the investigator deems it beneficial to the investigation.

We ask that you cooperate fully and promptly with any investigation, the scale of which we will seek to ensure is proportionate to the complaint being made. This may include informing us of the names of any relevant witnesses, disclosing any relevant documents to us and attending interviews, as part of our investigation.

Following an assessment of the facts, the line manager or senior manager will decide whether the matter can be dealt with internally or whether it is necessary to refer the matter to a third party for investigation, such as the Diocese or the Police.

 

4.3 The Outcome

We will endeavour to resolve your complaint as promptly as we can, but it may take time to conduct a thorough investigation.

You will be notified in writing of the outcome within two weeks of the close of the investigation.

 

5. Stage 3 - Review

If the complaint has not been resolved to your satisfaction, you may request a review of the decision.

Requests for a review should be submitted in writing to the Head of People and Culture, Natasha Rayan (see contact details above), within 14 days of the date on which the outcome of the investigation was sent or given to you.

A decision on who should review will be taken by the Chair of Trustees or the ASSTC Director. The review will be dealt with impartially by the Chair of Trustees, the HR Sub-committee Trustee or another trustee not involved in the previous investigation (although they may ask anyone previously involved to contribute to their review of the previous decision).

The review is not an opportunity for new evidence or a new investigation but rather to check that the investigation and outcome have come to the correct decision. The reviewer will decide whether the previous decision was correct or incorrect, in whole or in part. They can either: agree with the decision, send it back for review, change the outcome, ask for more investigation or mediation, or dismiss the complaint.

We will confirm our final decision in writing, usually within four weeks of submission of your request for a review.

Following this review, if you believe the complaint was not handled in accordance with this policy, or that those investigating acted unlawfully or unreasonably, you can contact the Diocese to request that they review our handling of the complaint. The Diocese can be contacted via the Archdeacon of London (archdeacon.london@london.anglican.org).