1. Introduction
Lucy Faithfull Foundation is committed to delivering services professionally, fairly, and respectfully. We welcome feedback and complaints as opportunities to improve our work.
The foundation prides itself on integrity, professionalism and being experts in our field. We recognise that we may not always get it right and so having feedback helps us to make changes to how we deliver our services and all aspects of our work.
Lucy Faithfull Foundation is registered with the charity commission and adheres to relevant regulatory standards, including those set by the Information Commissioner’s Officer and the Fundraising Regulator.
Any information that we gain about our work, will be used to enhance what we do and how we do it, and hearing your perspective is really important to us.
2. What is a complaint?
A complaint is an expression of dissatisfaction about the services we provide, the conduct of someone working for or on behalf of the organisation, or the way a matter has been handled. Complaints may relate to:
- The quality, timeliness, or delivery of a service.
- The behaviour or actions of staff, contractors, or representatives.
- Decisions or processes that you believe were unfair or unclear.
Complaints are different from general enquiries or feedback. If you are seeking information or an explanation, or wish to offer your general feedback, suggestions or compliments this can often be done informally. Should you wish to raise a matter informally please reach out to the relevant service manager to discuss your concerns. However, if you feel something has gone wrong or you have been treated unfairly, it should be raised as a formal complaint so we can investigate and respond appropriately.
In line with our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion policy, complaints of bullying, harassment, victimisation and unlawful discrimination are taken seriously.
3. How to make a complaint
You can make a complaint about how we have handled your personal data or any aspect of our services, research or fundraising activities by:
Phone: 01527 591 922
Post: The Lucy Faithfull Foundation, Harris Business Park, 2 Birch House, Hanbury Road, Stoke Prior, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire B60 4DJ
Email: complaints@lucyfaithfull.org.uk
Within your complaint, please provide:
- A summary of your complaint
- When it happened
- Who and which service was involved
- What outcome you seek
- Your preferred contact details
If you wish to remain anonymous and not share contact details, we will still process your complaint as we want to learn from your feedback. In these circumstances we may not be able to provide you with a formal acknowledgement and response.
4. Our process for formal complaints
Acknowledgement: We will acknowledge your complaint within 5 working days (for fundraising, research or service complaints) or within 30 days (as legally required for data protection complaints). In practice, we provide an initial acknowledgement to data complaints as promptly as operational capacity allows, aiming to respond within 5 working days.
Investigation: When a formal complaint is received, it will be passed to a manager who will be an employee of the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, to conduct a fair investigation. Where appropriate this manager will be from another department to ensure objectivity. Under certain circumstances one of the charity’s Trustees will conduct the investigation. The investigating manager will look into the complaint and will do a full investigation to ascertain the facts. It might be necessary to contact you for further information.
Our data retention policies may mean that we no longer retain data related to historical contact with the charity. The length of time that we retain, and store data depends on the purpose for which it was collected. We will only store data for as long as is required to fulfil that purpose, or for the purpose of satisfying legal requirements.
Timeframe for outcome: We aim to resolve for all data protection complaints without undue delay and within 15 working days for fundraising or other service complaints, keeping you informed if more time is needed. If the conclusion of the investigation takes longer due to the complexity involved, we will write to you with an explanation and a date to expect a full response.
Support: Throughout, a complaints administrator will support with the process, to answer your general process queries ensure you have a smooth an experience as possible.
Confidentiality: All complaints are handled confidentially, and information is shared only as necessary. Themes from complaints are reviewed by our senior leadership team and trustees to ensure transparency and accountability throughout our organisation.
Learning: We use complaints to improve our services and fundraising practices. To achieve this, our leadership team are committed to reviewing themes and lesson learnt from complaints received, to help us improve our services. These themes and anonymous examples may be used for staff training.
5. Escalation
Internal escalation: If you are not satisfied with the outcome or handling of your complaint after our initial response, you may request an internal review. Your complaint will then be escalated to a member of our leadership team who was not involved in the original investigation. We will acknowledge your request for escalation within five working days and aim to provide a further response within 15 working days. If your complaint is particularly complex or requires additional time, we will keep you informed of progress and provide an expected date for a full response.
External escalation: If you remain unsatisfied, you can seek advice from the following bodies:
- If the complaint concerns the conduct of a charity (e.g., serious harm, mismanagement, or safeguarding), it can be escalated to the Charity Commission, the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR)
- For fundraising complaints, you may contact the Fundraising Regulator or the Fundraising Preference Service (FPS).
- For data protection complaints, you may contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
- For ethical complaints about research, you can contact the ethics department on any partnering research body (e.g. the researching university) or to an institutional ethics committee if it fails within their remit.
6. Accessibility
The Lucy Faithfull Foundation is committed to making it possible for anyone to share their perspective.
Complaints can be made by phone, post, or email as listed above however if this makes it difficult for you to contact us then we will make reasonable adjustments to support complainants with additional needs. Please contact us to discuss what would be helpful for you.
7. Record keeping
We keep a secure central log of all formal complaints and outcomes for at least 24 months which allows us to track resolutions and trends, identify gaps and ensure that any remedial actions are put in place.
Please see our published Privacy Policy to better understand our approach to managing and protecting personal data.
8. Other general feedback
If you have any comments or compliments about our work, we would love to hear from you. Please email us at contact@lucyfaithfull.org.uk.
If you would like to provide anonymous feedback, you can do so via our anonymous email service on Stop It Now or Shore.