Early Years is committed to providing its customers with the highest levels of service. However, we are aware that from time to time you may be unhappy with the service provided. To deal with this, we have a Complaints Procedure. We believe that complaints can help us see where our services or procedures might be improved, even if the you feel that your concern does not amount to a ‘complaint’, we still want to know about it. Here we set out how you can make a complaint.

The aim of our Complaints Policy

• To provide an effective means to receive complaints about the quality or nature of services.

• To ensure those complaints are acted upon and recorded.

• To seek to resolve complaints quickly and as close to the point of service as is acceptable and appropriate.

• To ensure that responses to complaints are informative and comprehensive.

• To give management an additional tool to monitor the overall performance of the organisation and the extent to which its service objectives are being met.

Our standards for handling complaints

Our intention is to deal with all complaints fairly and with integrity. We will treat those making a complaint with courtesy, respect and fairness at all times. We expect that you will also treat our staff dealing with your complaint with the same courtesy, respect and fairness. Complaints will be dealt with in confidence and data kept in line with data protection legislation. Complainants will be treated in accordance with the Equal Opportunities Policy of Early Years.

All complaints received will be dealt with confidentially and in accordance with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation 2018, subject to the need to disclose information as required by statutory authorities, and/or as a result of statutory, legal or parliamentary obligations placed on Early Years.

How to make a Complaint

Informal complaints

You should attempt to make your complaint to a member of Early Years staff closest to the service you want to complain about, but if you are not sure you can speak to any member of staff within Early Years. The staff member will try to resolve your complaint immediately or will pass on the matter to a more appropriate colleague who will contact you to deal with the issue as soon as possible. If the matter is resolved at this stage, then no further action will be taken. However, Early Years may keep a record of your complaint to assist in improvement of the service.

If your complaint is not resolved informally you may decide to make a formal complaint following the process below.

Please note that you can request to bypass the informal complaint process above and proceed directly to a formal complaints process.

Formal complaints

You can make a formal complaint verbally, by telephone or in writing to Early Years on 02890662825 or by emailing info@early-years.org.

The formal complaints process has the following stages:

Stage 1

The member of Early Years staff who receives the complaint will log your complaint including the date, personal contact details of the complainant and the nature of the complaint.

If your complaint is received verbally or by telephone you will receive an acknowledgement to your complaint by email. If the complaint is received in writing, for example, by email you will receive an acknowledgement of the receipt of the complaint.

Your complaint will be investigated by the Manager of the service you have complained about who may contact you to gather further information. At the completion of the investigation a member of Early Years staff, deemed to be most able to help resolve the issue(s) raised, will contact you with the intention of reaching a resolution. Contact will be by phone although you can request written contact if you would prefer that.

The timescale from receipt of the complaint to making contact to attempt resolution will be carried out as quickly as possible.

Stage 2

It is hoped that the complaint will be dealt with at Stage 1. However, if you are not satisfied you can move to Stage 2. At this stage Early Years will involve the CEO.

The CEO will consider the original complaint, any investigation that took place and the attempt to resolve the complaint at Stage 1 and any other relevant information. They may contact you  to gather further information. They will then contact you with the intention of reaching a resolution to the complaint.

The timescale from receipt of the complaint to making contact to attempt resolution will be carried out as quickly as possible and should normally be within 28 days. If the complaint is particularly complex and/or requires lengthy investigation it may take longer to review. In this case you will be kept informed of progress.

This is the final stage of the complaint procedure.

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