Complaints policy

Corra Foundation is committed to providing good-quality services to the people and communities we work with.  When our service is not as good as it should be, we want to know about it so that we can put things right. 

We aim to:

• deal with your complaint quickly
• handle all complaints fairly, impartially, professionally and objectively
• investigate the issues thoroughly
• keep you informed about the progress and outcomes of your complaint
• resolve your complaint where possible
• use your feedback to improve the way services are delivered.

To make a complaint, you can:

• talk to a member of our staff directly
• contact our Corporate Services team or our Head of Corporate Services to make a complaint at any time
• register a complaint in person, by telephone, by letter, or by email
• ask us for help or support with our complaints process at any time
• If you want to make your complaint confidentially, please use our complaints@corra.scot to do this

At Corra, we expect all interactions to be approached with politeness and mutual respect. We will not tolerate any form of harassment towards Corra staff and those working with us.

What is a complaint?

A complaint is anything that has caused you to be dissatisfied about the service received from or interaction with Corra, or someone acting on our behalf.

This could include a complaint about the way Corra has handled your personal information (or the personal information of someone you are acting on behalf of) or if you consider that we have infringed data protection legislation.

In some cases, you might not think something is a complaint but when we look into it, we may think it should be dealt with through our complaints process. We will keep you updated of any outcome or decision before taking any further action.

What is not a complaint?

We appreciate that you might be disappointed if we turn down your application for funding, but you cannot use the complaints procedure to appeal against our decision on giving a grant if we have followed our decision-making process correctly.

Please also note that exercising your data protection rights is not treated as a complaint under this policy. The process for exercising your data protection rights is outlined in our Privacy Policy.

We will take all reasonable steps to fully understand what has happened. Whilst all cases will be treated in confidence, in the rare case that this is not possible, we will discuss this with you before taking further action. Any reports of fraud or criminal activity will be treated very seriously and where appropriate will involve the police.

We have a two-step complaints process:

1. A suitable member of staff investigates your complaint.
2. If we did not manage to resolve your complaint, you can make an appeal and a more senior member of staff will investigate further.

Complaints that are considered to be very serious or complex (for example, a complaint against the Chief Executive or a Trustee) may, in exceptional circumstances, be elevated immediately to step 2 and may require the appointment of an independent person to deal with the complaint.

Complaints about a member of staff will be dealt with by a more senior member of staff.

1: Making a complaint

Please tell us what went wrong, when it happened, who you dealt with, and what you think we can do to make it right.

Within two working days of us receiving your complaint, we will acknowledge your complaint in writing, detailing your complaint in full and clarifying what we need to investigate further. We will tell you when you can expect a full reply and the name of the person dealing with your complaint.

We aim to give you a full reply within five working days of our acknowledgement. We are usually able to do this, however it may take longer if your complaint is complicated. If this happens, we will let you know within five working days explaining why it will take longer; what we are doing to deal with your complaint and when you can expect an answer.

If we agree that the matter you have complained about is our fault, we will apologise and try to put things right as soon as we can. If we disagree or cannot put things right, we will tell you why and give you a full explanation of the course of action we have taken. 

2: Making an appeal

If you are not happy with our reply at step 1, please let us know as soon as possible by contacting us by phone, letter or email.

You should explain why you are not happy with our reply and what action you think we should take. We will acknowledge your request within five working days.

We will ask a suitable senior member of staff to take a fresh look at your complaint and carry out an investigation.

If the investigation finds that you had good reason to complain, we will apologise and take action to put things right as soon as possible. If the senior member of staff upholds our original decision you will be given a full explanation of the reason why.

We aim to give you a full reply, setting out our decision, within 15 working days. We can usually achieve this, however it may take longer if your complaint is complicated. If this happens, we will let you know within 15 working days, explaining why a full reply will take longer; what we are doing to deal with your complaint and when you can expect an answer.

Complaints help to improve our service delivery

We carefully track all complaints and results are used positively to help us improve our service and learn from any mistakes we make.

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.