Complaints Handling Procedure and Policy

Parkit Management Ltd is committed to providing a high quality, transparent and accessible service to everyone that we deal with. In order to do this, we need you to tell us when we get things wrong. We want to help resolve your complaint as quickly as possible.

We handle any expression of dissatisfaction with our service which calls for a response as a complaint. We listen to your complaints, treat them seriously, and learn from them so that we can continuously improve our service.

What is a complaint?

A complaint is an expression of dissatisfaction, whether justified or not.
Our policy covers complaints about:

● the standard of service you should expect from us
● the behaviour of our staff in delivering that service
● any action, or lack of action, by our staff or others engaged on Company business

Our complaints policy does not cover:

● Complaints against one of our Clients and/or their actions
● matters that have already been fully investigated through this complaint’s procedure
● anonymous complaints

Our standards for handling complaints

● We can receive complaints by letter or email, or alternatively, if required, by virtue of reasonable adjustments. We treat all complaints seriously.
● You can expect to be treated with courtesy, respect and fairness always. We expect that you will also treat our staff dealing with your complaint with the same courtesy, respect and fairness.
● We will treat your complaint in confidence within the organisation.
● We will deal with your service complaint promptly. We will acknowledge receipt of a written complaint within 5 working days where we have a return address and you can expect to have a full reply within 28 working days. In a few cases we will not be able to send a full reply within 28 working days of receipt, for example if your complaint is very complex. If this happens, we will tell you the reason why and let you know when we will be able to reply in full, keeping you fully informed of progress.
● We will not treat you less favourably than anyone else because of your:
o sex or legal marital or same-sex partnership status: this includes family status, responsibility for dependants, and gender (including gender reassignment, whether proposed, commenced or completed)
o sexual orientation
o colour or race: this includes ethnic or national origin or nationality
o disability
o religious or political beliefs, or trade union affiliation
o any other unjustifiable factors, for example language difficulties, age, pregnancy and maternity.
● Complaints will be logged and held on file for 36 months.

Third Party Reporting

Complainants may wish to have a third-party act on their behalf. A third party is any person or organisation acting on behalf of or making enquiries for the complainant. For example, third parties may include:

● advice organisations
● Professionals such as social workers, community psychiatric nurses, doctors or solicitors
● family members or friends

Where a third party is helping a complainant with a particular complaint, we need written consent to that effect. Where we have this authority, we will endeavour to take all possible steps to keep the third party informed of progress on the complaint.
We do not need written consent if a MP or elected Councillor is helping a constituent with a complaint, and we can disclose information to them in response to their enquiries.
Also, some lawyers and attorneys are legally empowered in certain circumstances to act on behalf of a complainant, and consent to disclose information is not required.

Confidentiality
All complaints received will be dealt with confidentially and in accordance with the requirements of the Data Protection Legislation subject to the need to disclose information as required by statutory authorities, and/or as a result of statutory, legal or parliamentary obligations placed on this firm.
How to complain to us
If you wish to make a complaint, you can do so by email or letter.
If you are disabled, and need a reasonable adjustment to ensure you can register your complaint, you can contact us alternatively by:

● Telephone (one of our staff will help you by writing out your complaint)
● Via our Website

Our contact details are in the Contacting Us section below. If you require different adjustments, let us know and we will try and put those arrangements in place where appropriate.

How we will respond to your complaint

Service complaints procedure
We have a two-stage complaints handling procedure, explained above. At each stage it will help us to resolve your complaint quickly if you can give us as much clarity and detail as possible, including providing any documents and correspondence and stating that you are making a complaint. If we do not have all the details required to deal with the complaint, we may contact you and ask you for further information.
Our Management team is responsible for managing the handling of service complaints including notifying you of the outcome.

Stage 1
This is the first opportunity for us to resolve your dissatisfaction. We expect most complaints to be resolved at this stage. On receipt of your complaint we will contact a senior manager from the most appropriate department and ask them to respond to your complaint.

Stage 2
If you are dissatisfied with the response at stage 1, you may request a review. This will be carried out by a responsible Director (or Deputy Director). Your request together with all subsequent correspondence relating to it should be sent to our complaints department, who will forward your request to the relevant Director to be reviewed.

If you are still dissatisfied
If having followed the two internal stages of our service complaints procedure you remain dissatisfied and the matter relates to a potential breach of the industry code of practice, you can ask to have your complaint reviewed by the International Parking Community (“IPC”); www.theipc.info
The IPC will assess whether there is evidence of service failure or maladministration on our part.

Timescales

Our timescales for handling a complaint are as follows;

Stage 1
We will acknowledge complaints within 5 working days of receiving each complaint. We will send a full response within 28 working days of receiving each complaint.

Stage 2
We will acknowledge complaints within 5 working days of receiving each complaint. We will send a full response within 28 working days of receiving each complaint.
Extending time limits

We aim to complete our investigation into all complaints received within the timescales set out above. However, in a limited number of cases – for example, if a complaint is very complex or requires further breakdown, it may be necessary to extend the time limit to ensure we have all the information necessary to deal with it. If this is the case, we will keep you informed of progress with the investigation, the reasons for the delay, and inform you of next steps.

Remedies

When we get things wrong, we will act to:
● accept responsibility and apologise
● explain what went wrong and why, and
● put things right by making any changes required
● learn lessons from mistakes and change policies and practices where proportionate and sensible to do so

The action we take to put matters right (i.e. redress) in response to a service complaint can include any combination of the remedies set out in the list below. The general principle we follow is that complainants should, so far as possible, be put in the position they would have been in, had things not gone wrong.

The remedy applied needs to be proportionate and appropriate to the failure in service and consider what redress people seek when they complain. An apology is generally the most appropriate action, but other action may also be necessary in some circumstances.

List of remedies

● A full apology, explaining what happened and/or what went wrong. (an apology is not an acceptance of liability under Section 2 of the Compensation Act 2006)
● Remedial action, which may include reviewing or changing a decision on the service given to an individual complainant
● Provide the service required in the first instance (immediately, if appropriate)
● Putting things right (for example a change of procedure to prevent future difficulties of a similar kind, either for the complainant or others)
● Training or supervising staff; or a combination of both

Recording complaints

Complaint details, outcomes and actions taken are recorded by us and used for service improvement. We record all complaints we receive and collate data from them to help us understand what types of problems are most prevalent, and how well we are doing to resolve them.
We value your feedback and expect to use it to help us to:
● get things right in the future if we have not done so already
● become more customer focused
● be more open and accountable
● act fairly and proportionately
● seek continuous improvement

We will handle your information so that it is only processed and retained appropriately and legally, in line with data protection legislation.

Contacting us

All complaints and requests for review under our complaint’s procedure should be sent as follows:
By post: Parkit Management Ltd PO Box 289, Gainsborough, DN21 9ES
By email: complaints@parkitmanagement.co.uk
Website: www.parkitmanagement.co.uk

If you are unable to contact us in writing as above, and require a reasonable adjustment because you are a disabled person, you may contact us as follows:
Telephone: 0870 760 4604

Reasonable adjustments and alternative formats
This firm is committed to equal opportunities and our aim is to make our complaints policy easy to use and accessible to all our customers. We will take reasonable steps to accommodate any reasonable adjustments you may have to enable you to access this policy or receive responses to complaints in other formats and provide such assistance as you may reasonably require.

Comments
Quality of service is an important measure for us of our effectiveness. Learning from complaints, including non-service complaints (complaints not covered by this policy), is a powerful way of helping continuous improvement and enables us to better deliver to our values and standards.
As well as learning from your complaint we are also interested in ideas you may have on how we might do things better. We would also like you to tell us when we do things well.
Your comments will be passed on to the relevant team and we will use them to help improve our services and the way we do things. You can make your comments by contacting any members of our staff, or you can e-mail info@parkitmanagement.co.uk

Addendum to the Complaints Policy and Procedure:

Vexatious Complaints, Unreasonable and Abusive Behaviour Policy

This policy deals with complaints which our Management team consider vexatious or repetitive, and behaviour which we deem as unreasonable.

Vexatious or repetitive complaints

We sometimes receive complaints which can be deemed ‘vexatious’ or ‘repetitive’. Some of these complaints can be costly to handle; or responding to them may be a disproportionate use of our staff’s time.

Deciding whether a complaint is vexatious requires us in each case to consider the context and history of the complaint. We will consider whether the complaint is likely to cause unjustified distress, disruption or irritation. We will consider the following issues:
● Could the complaint fairly be obsessive?
● Is the complaint harassing or causing distress to staff?
● Does the complaint appear to be designed to cause disruption or annoyance?
● Does the complaint lack any serious purpose or value?

The concern we will address is whether a complaint is vexatious in terms of the effect of the request on us and not whether the applicant is personally vexatious.
By its ordinary meaning, the term ‘vexatious’ refers to activity that “is likely to cause distress or irritation, literally to vex a person to whom it is directed”.

For a complaint to be vexatious, we will consider whether there is a proper or justified cause for it. We will not only examine the complaint itself, but also its context and history. That context may include other complaints made by the applicant to us (whether complied with or refused), the number and subject matter of the complaints, as well as the history of other dealings between the complainant and ourselves. The effect a complaint will have may be determined as much, or indeed more, by that context as by the complaint itself.

We will take into consideration the following factors (which are not an exhaustive list) when determining whether a complaint is vexatious:

● where the complaint requests information which has already been provided
● where the nature and extent of the complainant’s correspondence with us suggests an obsessive approach to disclosure
● where the tone adopted in correspondence by the complainant is confrontational and/or haranguing and demonstrates that the purpose is to argue and not really to obtain information
● where the correspondence could reasonably be expected to have a negative effect on the health and well-being of our staff
● where the complaint, viewed, appears to be intended simply to re-open issues which have been disputed several times before, and is, in effect, the pursuit of a complaint by alternative means
● where responding to the complaint would likely entail substantial and disproportionate financial and administrative burdens for us
● where it is not a one-off complaint, but a case of the same complaints having been made repeatedly, or where on repetition, the particulars of the complaints have been varied making it difficult to know exactly what the complainant is seeking and making it less likely that the request can be satisfied

No single one of the above factors would lead to a finding, by itself, that a complaint was vexatious. However, based on the strength of the various factors, taken together with the history and context of a complaint, a complaint may be deemed vexatious by this firm.
Complaints can sometimes become a vehicle for individuals to try to reopen previous issues. Although we recognise that people are not always satisfied with the responses they receive, the raising of complaints is not a panacea for problems that have not been resolved through other channels i.e. disputing a Parking Charge Notice (“PCN”) after all appeals processes have been exhausted. Continued complaints after the underlying dispute has been addressed, go beyond the reasonable pursuit of resolution.

Unreasonable Behaviour

Parkit Management Ltd understands that people may act out of character in times of distress or due to frustration. We do not view behaviour as unreasonable just because a complainant is forceful or determined. Our Management team make reasonable allowances for complainants’ behaviour.
However, sometimes the situation between a complaint and the Manager handling the same can escalate and the behaviour of the complainant becomes unacceptable, for example becoming abusive, aggressive or threatening. Such abusive, aggressive, threatening or vexatious complaints are in the very small minority, but we sometimes find ourselves in the position where we need to restrict or bring to an end communication and access to our premises or staff.
Our staff have the right to undertake their work free from abuse, threats and harassment, or vexatious and repetitive complaints. We expect our staff to be treated with courtesy and respect. Parkit Management Ltd has a duty to protect the welfare and safety of staff and considers that violence, threats or abuse towards staff is unacceptable. Staff are also expected to treat complainants with courtesy, respect and fairness.
Complainants who harass, or have been abusive, aggressive or threatening on one or more occasions towards our staff – or their families or associates – directly or indirectly, will be considered unreasonable.
Any threats or acts of violence will cause direct contact with the complainant to be discontinued. Violence includes behaviour or language (written, oral, or in tone or otherwise) that may cause staff to feel afraid, threatened or abused. Examples of unacceptable behaviour includes but not exclusively threats, verbal abuse, derogatory remarks, rudeness, racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, disablist or other harassment based on personal characteristic or obscene remarks, repeatedly demanding disciplinary action be taken against staff, and where complainants are known to have recorded meetings or telephone conversations without consent.
We also consider that inflammatory statements and unsubstantiated allegations can amount to abusive behaviour.

Furthermore, our staff will bring to end phone calls, if the caller is considered aggressive, abusive or threatening. The complainant will first be told that we consider their language offensive or their behaviour unacceptable and will be asked to stop using such language or behaviour.
If a staff member considers behaviour to be unreasonable, they are advised in the first instance to refer it to their manager who may seek advice and guidance before determining future contact with the complainant, be that by telephone, in person, or electronically.

Where complaints are deemed vexatious, the complainant will be notified in writing that no further correspondence will be entered on the matter in question.

Where unreasonable or abusive behaviour is determined, the complainant will be notified in writing that no further contact will be undertaken, and this will apply to all contacts. A copy of this policy will be included and, if and where appropriate, a no-contact period specified. If further contact is necessary, the complainant will be informed that it will be made through a Director or their nominated officer/s. A decision to restrict contact will be reconsidered if the complainant subsequently demonstrates more reasonable behaviour.

If you disagree with a decision made by Parkit Management Ltd to regard your behaviour as unreasonable, you can challenge it. Please refer to our Complaints Policy.
All incidents of harassment or aggression will be documented and referred to senior staff. In appropriate circumstances these matters may be referred to the police and this firm may consider taking appropriate legal action against the complainant, if necessary, without prior warning.