Compliments and complaints

We love to hear your compliments and thank you messages. Tell your advocate, call us or send your comment to feedback@voiceability.org and we will make sure the relevant people or team receive your message.

There are two ways you can ask us to handle your complaint. You can ask us to put things right informally, and/​or you can make a formal complaint.

Informal resolution is often the best way to resolve a situation easily and quickly. We will still take your feedback just as seriously. Informal resolution means we will talk to you about why you are unhappy and we will do our best to put things right and solve the problem.

If you don’t want to try informal resolution, or if you have tried informal resolution and you are not happy with our response, you can tell us you would like your complaint handled as a formal complaint. This means we will do a full investigation and you will get a written response.

1. Explain the reasons why you are complaining, and what you would like us to do to put things right.

You can make a formal complaint by phone, in person, by email, or by letter to anyone who works for VoiceAbility. You should tell us why you are complaining, and what you would like us to do to put things right. We recommend contacting our local office that is working with you. Alternatively, you may email our Head Office using the following email address: feedback@voiceability.org

• If you give your feedback in writing, your letter or email will be given straight to the right person in VoiceAbility.
• If you give your feedback on the phone or in person, and the person you speak to is not able to answer your questions themselves, they will pass on the details to the right person who will then contact you directly.
• If you make a complaint using social media, we will acknowledge your complaint on social media and ask for your contact details in a private message, so that we can speak to you about the issue on email or phone.

2. Within two working days we will acknowledge your complaint, and tell you which manager will be investigating your complaint.

They will also tell you who will be investigating your complaint, and they will pass your complaint to that person.

The person investigating your complaint will usually be the manager of the service, or the manager of the staff member you are complaining about. You may have already spoken to the manager to try to resolve the issue informally. This does not mean that they cannot investigate your formal complaint. In fact, they are often the best person to investigate your complaint because they already understand the reasons you are unhappy.

The manager investigating your complaint will contact you directly so that you can talk to them about your complaint in more detail. This is so that you can tell them why you are unhappy, and what you would like them to do to put things right.

The manager will then investigate your complaint. They will look into the things that you are concerned about. 

3. Within 20 working days of making your complaint, you’ll get a full written reply from the investigating manager.

You can appeal the decision about your complaint if you feel that:

• There has been an error in the investigation AND/OR
• The decision made is not supported by the findings of the investigation.

You will find instructions on how to appeal in the letter you receive from us replying to your formal complaint. You must request the appeal within 10 working days of receiving the reply to your formal complaint.

The investigation of your complaint will then be reviewed by an appropriate person, chosen by a Regional Operations Manager or a member of our Senior Team. Usually, the person chosen to look at your appeal will be someone senior to the person who undertook the original investigation, such as the line manager of the person who conducted the investigation.

Within 20 days of you requesting an appeal, we will let you know whether we are upholding or changing the original decision about your complaint. After this, there is no right to a further appeal to VoiceAbility. If you are still unhappy, you can contact the commissioner of our service in your area (usually this is the Local Authority), or the Charity Commission.