In most cases we will respond to your complaint within ten working days starting the day after the date of our acknowledgment.
If all or part of the period to respond to your complaint, outlined above, falls on a day on which we are closed for half-term or end of term holidays, the deadline to respond to your complaint will be extended to twenty working days starting on the day after the date of our acknowledgement. During these times, staff may be on annual leave and more time may be required to account for such absences. We will confirm whether such an extension is required when we acknowledge your complaint (see step 2).
If your complaint is particularly complicated and/or requires a significant investigation to be undertaken and, in our responsible opinion, it is not possible to respond to you with a meaningful outcome within the deadlines set out above, we will contact you as soon as possible, and no later than ten working days starting the day after the date of our acknowledgement, to let you know and to discuss an appropriate deadline to respond to your complaint.
If we determine that an extended deadline is necessary, as outlined above, we will keep you informed of our progress at such intervals as we consider reasonable to satisfy you that your complaint is being progressed efficiently.
Please do not contact us regarding the progress of your complaint before the relevant deadline for response.
In our response, we may accept, partially accept or reject your complaint. We will accept your complaint if we consider it to be completely justified or partially accept your complaint if we believe part of it to be justified. In either case we will explain what went wrong and why and try to remedy the situation, in particular, by making the changes necessary to ensure the problem does not occur again in the future. Where you have suffered a detriment, we will, where possible, as a general principle, try to put you back in the position you would have been in had things not gone wrong.
