How to make a complaint

You should use this process if you think that:

• we have delayed, made mistakes or failed to follow our processes;
• we have failed to give you access to information or have given you incorrect advice or information;
• we have not treated you politely;
• we have unlawfully discriminated against you or not treated you fairly.

If your complaint relates to an application for funding, this could mean:

• you believe that we have made mistakes or failed to follow our procedures when handling your application for funding;
• you believe that a member of our organisation has given you incorrect information (it could be this information has affected the outcome of your application);
• you believe a member of our organisation has treated you impolitely or unfairly.

If you are unsure if your experience with us fits within any of these points, please contact our Complaints Manager for advice by emailing complaints@artscouncil. org.uk

We understand that you may be disappointed if our decision is not what you would have liked. We will not accept complaints through this process that relates solely to the decision rather than the way we have taken it.

We can only reconsider any decisions we have made if we find we have made mistakes that have materially affected it.

If the decision is following an application was to the National Lottery Project Grants fund, you may find our Support for unsuccessful applicants section of the website helpful in understanding our decision.

We can only use our complaints process to respond to actions that Arts Council

England takes, or fails to take. We are unable to use the complaints process

to investigate the actions of third parties. Please refer to our Raising a concern information sheet for further information.

If your complaint is about the policy itself, rather than the way a decision has been taken or a problem with the delivery of a service, we will not consider it under our complaints procedure.

If you have any comments or complaints around our policies, you can contact our

Chief Executive by emailing  chief.executive@artscouncil.org.uk.

If you want to comment on government policy on arts and culture, you can contact the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS):

Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport

100 Parliament Street, London, 

SW1A 2BQ

enquiries@culture.gov.uk

020 7211 6000

We are unable to investigate potential fraud through our complaints process,

however if you believe someone is stealing from, or defrauding Arts Council England, please help us to do something about it. Please get in touch with our Counter-Fraud Manager by emailing  fraud@artscouncil.org.uk.

You should also contact the police through their dedicated website, ActionFraud.

You should send your complaint  or any questions to complaints@artscouncil.org.uk. If you experience or anticipate any barriers to submitting a complaint, please contact Customer Services by calling  0161 934 4317 or email  enquiries@artscouncil.org.uk. 

You must submit your complaint to Arts Council England within three months of the action or event to which it relates. If you make a complaint outside of this timeframe, then it may not be possible to investigate through this formal process.

To give us the best chance of resolving your complaint successfully, please tell us:

•          what happened,

•          when it happened,

•          who dealt with you,

•          what you would like us to do to put things right.

Please include all the information you feel is relevant and necessary, including any correspondence you have received. Please do not worry if you don’t have all this information, we can fill in the gaps with you before we begin to investigate.

It is important to provide as much relevant information as possible before investigation. Adding material during this process will cause delays and can affect the resolution we offer.

After we have received your complaint, we will contact you to acknowledge it. This will happen within 20 working days.

If we can identify how and where something may have gone wrong, we are committed to making things right as soon as possible. We call this Early Resolution.

If your concerns require further consideration, we will treat your complaint at;

Stage One – Our Complaints Manager will work with you to create the Terms of Reference for your complaint. Once you agree that we fully understand your concerns, we will investigate and respond in writing. Our response will include a copy of the investigation report to ensure transparency. We aim to respond within 20 working days of confirming the terms of reference. If we are unable to do so, we will write to you to explain why and when you can expect our response.

If you believe we have failed to investigate sufficiently, not fully addressed your concerns or not provided a fair and proportionate resolution at Stage One, you can ask our Chief Executive to review your complaint at Stage Two. We will explain how to do this in our Stage One response.

Stage Two – Our Chief Executive will appoint an appropriate investigator to address your concerns and create the Terms of Reference for your complaint. Once you agree that they fully understand your concerns, they will investigate and provide the Chief Executive with a report. The Chief  Executive will use this report to inform their opinion and write to you explaining their findings and conclusions. We aim to respond within 20 working days of confirming the terms of reference. If we are unable to do so, we will write to you to explain why and when you can expect our response.

We are unable to investigate new or unrelated information at Stage Two or bypass the first stage. If you ask us to do this, we must begin the process again at Stage One. This ensures your concerns are addressed fully and in line with our procedures.

If we agree with your complaint, we will uphold or partially uphold it. We will then provide a fair and proportionate resolution. Resolution is unique to the situation you have raised but typically we may apologise, re-enter an application at the point an error is identified or explain how we intend to make improvements.

We are unable to reverse decisions or provide financial compensation as a resolution through this complaints process.

If you are still dissatisfied with our decision or the way we have handled your complaint, you can refer your complaint to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO).

The Ombudsman investigates complaints where someone believes there has been injustice or hardship because an organisation has not acted properly or has given a poor service and not put things right.

By law, the Ombudsman is independent of the Government and the civil service and has wide powers to investigate. The Ombudsman investigates complaints fairly and their service is free for everyone.

The Ombudsman does not normally investigate complaints if they have not been through our complaints procedures first. If you have escalated your complaint through our process and still feel a fair or proportionate resolution has not been provided, you can contact your Member of Parliament (MP) and ask them to send your complaint to the Ombudsman. MPs’ contact details can be found at www.parliament.uk.

For more information you can contact their customer helpline by calling 0345 015 4033 or visiting their website  www.ombudsman.org.uk.

Judicial review is a type of court proceeding in which a judge reviews the lawfulness of a decision or action made by a public body. The judge cannot rule that we must change a funding decision but can ask us to reconsider our decision. For more information you can visit  www.judiciary.uk.

Our publication scheme gives details of what information we routinely publish and where you can find it. You can find information about our publication scheme on our website or by phoning 0161 934 4317.

If you want information that we do not include in our publication scheme, the Freedom of Information Act 2000 gives you the right to ask us for it. It also sets out exemptions from that right.

All requests for information should be in writing and sent to: Senior Officer, Freedom of Information and Data Protection

Arts Council England

49 Lever Street

Manchester M1 1FN foi@artscouncil.org.uk

Do not use this complaints procedure to make a complaint about the way we dealt with an information request. If you are not happy with how we handled your request, you can ask for an internal review  by sending your concerns in writing  to the Chief Executive  chief.executive@artscouncil.org.uk

Further information on the Freedom of Information Act can be obtained from the

Information Commissioner. For more information you can visit ico.org.uk

If you use our complaints procedure, we will collect personal data from you to help us consider and respond to your complaint and to help us monitor the quality of our responses.

For further information on what personal data we collect, what we do with it and who we may share it with see our General Privacy Notice.

We are committed to equal opportunities and take complaints about discrimination seriously.

We may use complaints about discrimination to review our policies and procedures. This is to make sure we treat everyone equally.

We welcome comments and suggestions as these can help us improve our services. Please send your comments or suggestions to our Complaints Manager by emailing complaints@artscouncil.org.uk. You can also call our Customer Services team on 0161 934 4317.

To get this publication in Braille, large print, or in another accessible format please contact us on 0161 934 4317.