Complaints
In the event of a complaint against any members of staff Pease request a copy of our complaint form from simon@simplyaccounts.uk and returned via Royal Mail Signed for.
Supporting evidence
All complaints must be supported by evidence of misconduct by a staff member. We will not investigate your complaint if you:
do not provide documentary evidence in support of your complaint, or
provide excessive documentation or hearsay evidence irrelevant to the complaint.
Simply Accounts wish to be transparent in its handling of complaints against staff members. This means all evidence and information will be disclosed to the member you are complaining about.
Please do not send original documents with your complaint form. We cannot return any documents to you.
Please ensure you provide a full account of each issue you wish to be considered by the complaints manager as well as all relevant supporting evidence – when submitting your complaint. We will not consider complaints or evidence submitted in stages. Also, awaiting the outcome of one complaint before deciding whether to submit would amount to a misuse of our complaints process.
Help to make your complaint
Our complaint framework should not place anyone with a disability at a disadvantage. We have a duty to make reasonable adjustments to meet individual needs. If you are unable to submit your complaint using our form or by email, please contact us and we will send you a paper copy of our complaint form and guidance as an alternative. If someone is assisting you in submitting a complaint or doing so on your behalf, please indicate this on the complaint form when asked.
If you have any other specific requirements, please contact us to discuss what you need. While we will do our best to accommodate any reasonable requests, the Complaints Manager will consider complaints in a manner which is reasonable, consistent, and fair to all parties, and will therefore require the same obligatory information/evidence to substantiate a complaint before taking it forward.
What happens next
We will write to confirm receipt of your complaint and then carry out an assessment to determine whether there are grounds for us to consider the complaint further.
The further investigation will involve making enquiries with the parties or third parties (where applicable). Where necessary we may also ask you to provide additional information.
Once the assessment is concluded we will either:
inform you we are unable to uphold the complaint and explain why, or
warn the staff member and counsel them on future conduct, or
take disciplinary action against the staff member.
If disciplinary action is taken we will keep you apprised of the disciplinary proceedings and the outcome of your complaint.
If the matter results in dismissal the mater may end up in an Industrial Tribunal, you might be asked to attend the hearing to appear as a witness.
How long the complaints process takes
We aim to conclude cases between 3 and 9 months, but this very much depends on the complexity of the complaint and whether the matter needs to be referred to the Disciplinary Tribunal for a determination.