Complaints process

You can complain to us if you think that:

• We have not correctly followed our procedures in processing your application, or have delayed your application in any way
• You have not received a satisfactory level of service from our staff
• We have discriminated against you or treated you unfairly

Our Complaints policy has two separate stages – an informal stage and a formal stage. The two stages are set out below.

Stage 1 – initial complaint

If you are not happy with any aspect of service you have received, you should initially contact either the person involved, or our Complaints Administrator by email or in writing, and we will investigate your concerns. We will acknowledge your complaint within three working days, and aim to respond within ten working days.

Stage 2 – formal complaint

If you are not satisfied with our Stage 1 response, you can complain by email or by letter to the Complaints Administrator, who will pass it to the appropriate Director.

We will acknowledge your complaint within three working days of receipt, and investigate your complaint fully. Normally, you can expect a formal response from us within ten working days from date of receipt. If investigating, your complaint will take longer than ten working days, we will inform you before the tenth day.

If we do not hear from you after 28 days of our response, we will then close your complaint.

If your complaint is against a funding decision we have made, we are only able to review your application if:

• When dealing with a complaint we discover that we have not followed our published procedures when assessing your application
• You can demonstrate that we have misunderstood a significant part of your application
• You can demonstrate that we did not take important information into account when assessing your application

If you would like to make a complaint against a funding decision, please ensure that you state this as the nature of your complaint and include an outline of how you are able to demonstrate any of the points above.

Although we are fully committed to customer satisfaction, there may be some cases where a complaint cannot be resolved to both parties’ agreement. Should such a situation arise, we will advise you on the final decision and all steps taken to resolve the issue.

You can download a copy of our complaints process below.

Complaints process PDF download

Please send your complaint to:

Complaints Administrator, The Social Investment Business,
5th Floor, 6 St. Andrew Street, London EC4E 3AE

Or by email to: complaints@socialinvestmentbusiness.org