Corruption Matters - June 2015 | Issue 45
In charge of complaints? Read on!
Last year, the NSW Ombudsman commenced a project to develop a complaints framework and policy in line with key changes to a national standard. Deputy Ombudsman Chris Wheeler explains that the aim of these guidelines is to help you become compliant with the revisions.
Both the Complaint Management Framework and the Complaint Handling Model Policy being developed by the NSW Ombudsman are intended to facilitate implementation of the approach to complaint-handling advocated in the revised Australian/New Zealand Standard: Guidelines for complaint management in organisations (AS/NZS 10002:2014).
The approach advocated in the revised standard places increased emphasis on organisations developing a complaints management system that enables staff to deal with complaints promptly, fairly and comprehensively as opposed to one that merely focuses on the satisfaction of the customer as the outcome.
The revised standard reinforces the need to ensure that there are three levels of complaint handling, as follows.
Level 1 – Frontline complaint handling for early resolution by agencies
The Complaint Management Framework encourages all agencies to ensure frontline staff have appropriate training to be able to recognise and deal with level 1 complaints for early intervention and resolution.
Level 2 – Internal review, including assessment, investigation, alternative dispute resolution or review
Generally such complaints are addressed to the head of the agency, who will usually delegate the matter to an appropriate person such as a complaints manager.
Level 3 – External review, including assessment, investigation, alternative dispute resolution or review
Such complaints are made to an external complaint handling body, such as the NSW Ombudsman, the Independent Commission Against Corruption, the Office of Local Government and other oversight bodies.
Drafts of the framework and model policy have been developed after an extensive review of complaint-handling policies and guidance from around the world and after consultation with a number of agencies and stakeholders in NSW.
The NSW Ombudsman intends to use these to benchmark how the office evaluates the standard of agency complaint management and complaint handling policies, procedures and practices. In this regard, the Ombudsman has commenced an audit of complaint handling in local councils as a first in a proposed series of audits and reviews of complaint handling systems and practices of organisations within our jurisdiction.
