Complaints
We welcome feedback as it helps us to develop as a charity, giving us the chance to monitor and improve our services. We set ourselves a high standard of customer care and if this is not met we want to hear about it.
We are sorry if you feel that you need to make a complaint but the following information will help you understand our complaints procedure.
What is the complaints procedure for and what does it cover?
The procedure is for complaints about our services from the public.
Data protection legislation requires us to only process complaints that come from people who have had direct contact with the Fingal SPCA. It prevents us from corresponding with third parties about complaints. This means that we cannot help you if you would like to complain on behalf of a family member, friend, or someone else, unless you have Power of Attorney.
The complaints procedure is not set up to handle animal welfare concerns about a particular animal or other general animal welfare matters such as farm animal transport or slaughter.
How do I make a service complaint?
You can submit our complaint via our Complaints Form which will be submitted directly to the Fingal SPCA. Please note that we are unable to take complaints over the phone due to lack of resources.
What information do I need to provide?
To ensure that your complaint can be dealt with quickly and efficiently you should provide the following Information:
- Full name
- Postal address
- Email address
- Telephone number
- Any contact details that are different from the above
- Full details of the complaint including relevant dates
- Whether you have a relationship with us, e.g. as a volunteer, supporter, former member of staff
- If you have any evidence available to support your complaint, e.g. photos, letters, emails, names of witnesses, vet's bill or other paperwork.
How long do I have to make a complaint?
Complaints will only be considered if they are received within three months of the time when you were first aware of the situation. We do not handle complaints that date back further than this.
If you remain dissatisfied following a reply to your complaint and you wish to escalate your complaint to the next level, this should be done within 15 working days of the date of our reply. We will not consider complaints outside this timescale
How long will it take to reply to my complaint?
Complaints will be acknowledged within five working days and then replied to in full within a further 25 working days. Although we reply to the majority of complaints within 25 working days, if the matter is complex and requires greater investigation it may take longer. If this is the case, we will contact you again to let you know and advise how much longer it will take and why.
What are the stages in the complaints procedure?
There are two stages in the complaints procedure; all complaints will be handled in this way:
Stage 1:
New complaints will be formally recorded and acknowledged (within fourteen working days). They will be investigated and a response to your complaint will be sent within 25 working days of the date we acknowledged your complaint. If this is not going to be possible they will let you know why, and how much longer it will take.
Stage 2:
If you remain dissatisfied with the reply you receive at Stage 1 and you let us know within 15 working days of the date of our reply, your complaint will be passed to the Chairperson to review it and reply. To ensure we save our resources for vital work on animal welfare, they will not acknowledge receipt of your letter/email but will aim to reply to you in full within 17 working days.
What happens to a complaint about our volunteers?
We expect our volunteers to be professional and courteous at all times so we take complaints about poor conduct very seriously. Any complaints or concerns regarding a volunteer are passed on to their Chairperson for investigation.
Please be aware that if the matter falls under our volunteer policy, we may not be able to inform you of the outcome but will still send you a reply when the investigation has been completed.
How do I know my complaint will be treated fairly?
We appreciate honest feedback as it helps us to learn and develop as a charity. So we investigate all complaints thoroughly to see what we can learn from them and where we can improve our relationship with the public. Our investigation and response to complaints will be fair and without bias. A full explanation and an apology (when appropriate) will be included in our reply.
Are there some complaints you don't respond to?
We expect our volunteers to handle complaints politely at all times. If the person making the complaint uses abusive language or an aggressive tone, we will not engage with this. So if the complaint is made in person, the volunteer may walk away or seek assistance from another volunteer. In these circumstances it is unlikely that your complaint will be taken seriously.
If the complaint is made in writing by letter or via our website and uses abusive language or threats, we will reply but will advise you in our response that this is unacceptable.
We may terminate correspondence about a specific complaint if it is clear that despite our best efforts we are unlikely to satisfy you. If you write to us again about a different issue, it will be treated as a new complaint and replied to.
The decision to terminate correspondence will only be made by a committee member senior manager after making sure that the matter has been investigated thoroughly and in line with our procedures. We will always tell you when we are terminating a complaint and the reason we are doing this.
Complaints will also only be considered if they are received within three months of the time when you were first aware of the situation. We do not handle complaints that date back further than this.
Data protection legislation requires us to only process complaints that come from people who have had direct contact with the Fingal SPCA. It prevents us from corresponding with third parties about complaints. This means that we cannot help you if you would like to complain on behalf of a family member, friend, or someone else, unless you have Power of Attorney.