We may contact you in the early stages of our consideration when we are deciding whether or not to investigate to provide some specific comments/information to help us make that decision. Quick responses to those requests help us to ensure we don’t take cases to investigation which we could deal with early in the process.
Where possible, we work collaboratively with customers and organisations to help resolve complaints, in cases where it could result in a better or quicker outcome for a customer or learning for an organisation without the need for investigation – of course, this always depends on the individual circumstances of each case.
When we decide to investigate, you will receive a letter, usually by email, which sets out clearly the information we are looking for and gives you an opportunity to comment. We will also ask you to fill in a self-assessment form about how you handled the complaint. At this stage, we normally give organisations 20 working days to return the information and provide comments. We may be able to provide short extensions to that time limit, but you will need to give us good reasons for the delay and explain why you can’t meet the original limit.
During an investigation we may be in touch to ask for clarification or more information. We will always give you a timescale for providing this and that is likely to be around 10 working days for these more detailed requests.
Following an investigation, if we have made recommendations, we will ask for evidence that they have been fulfilled. We will let you know the type of evidence we will need, and the time we give for responding will reflect the recommendation we have made.