Complaints Procedure.

Complaints

We are committed to ensuring that fair treatment is embedded in every engagement with clients, customers and staff.  If you feel we haven’t achieved this, we’d like you to let us know so we can look to put things right if needed and to improve our service for the future.

All complaints are considered fully, fairly and proportionately based, wherever possible, on evidence and documentation.

What is a Complaint?

A complaint is any oral or written expression of dissatisfaction by a person, or their representative, who has had dealings with us alleging that the action, or inaction, of our staff, agents, or contractors, has fallen short of their expectations.

Regardless of how a complaint is received to consider it fully we will need to know,

• Information about the event that has triggered the complaint, what happened, please describe in as much detail as you can and provide any supporting evidence you want us to consider?
• The impact of the event being complained about, what effect did it have?
• What is your preferred remedy, what steps do you feel we could we take to resolve this?

It’s important to note that making a complaint won’t change how we treat you going forward.

What isn’t a Complaint?

While we welcome all complaints the points below should be considered before contacting us as these are things we can’t, or don’t, consider as a complaint,

• Service issues that can be dealt with during a conversation such as setting or amending a Payment Plan
• The fact that a High Court Writ has been issued and is enforceable, as that is determined by the High Court, or the fact that you were unaware of the Writ until we attended to enforce it
• The amount being enforced on the Writ, as that is a matter for the judgment creditor (the person owed the money) or the Court
• Your opinion or feedback, whilst we are happy to hear this, we will not treat it, or respond to it, as a complaint
• Complaints or issues pending a decision from the Court, we won’t consider these until the Court has issued its decision

How to Make a Complaint

We welcome complaints by any method but specifically you can contact us,

By email to:

customer.care@courtenforcementservices.co.uk

By post to:

Court Enforcement Services Limited, PO Box 13230, Harlow CM20 9UH

As mentioned above, when making a complaint please tell us as much information as possible to help us to understand your concerns.

Please make sure you provide,

• your name, or business name, and address
• your reference number
• details of your complaint
• any evidence you would like considered e.g. documents, photos

You don’t have to make a complaint yourself if you don’t feel able to, you can give your authority to someone else (either an individual or from an agency) in writing and they can bring the complaint on your behalf.  We will still need all the details of what happened and the impact on you but someone else can communicate this to us on your behalf.

Where can you get Support

Support can be obtained via various sources, such as:

1. a) National Debtline
2. b) Business Debtline
3. c) Citizens Advice
4. d) StepChange Debt Charity
5. e) Christians Against Poverty
6. f) Community Money Advice
7. g) Debt Advice Locator Tool

You can also contact the Enforcement Conduct Board (ECB) using the details below and they may be able to help.

3^rd party authority – if you are complaining on behalf of somebody else, please ensure you provide written authority on behalf of the complainant.

Alternatively, you can complete our online form.

What Happens Next

Immediate Resolution (Informal) – sometimes we can resolve a complaint immediately, e,g, during a telephone call where our agent can take the time to provide further information or an explanation that satisfies.  Should this happen, our agent will summarise verbally that the complaint has been resolved, will note this on our system, but we will not necessarily provide a written response.

Acknowledgement – where we cannot offer Immediate Resolution we will acknowledge receipt of a complaint within 2 working days of receipt. We will do this by the most appropriate means, we use email where possible to avoid unnecessary postal delays.

Informal Resolution – wherever possible we will try to resolve a complaint fully and informally within 5 working days from when we acknowledged receipt. During this period the complaint will be considered by one of our Complaints Investigators, they will review documentation (including your submission), listen to phone calls or watch body worn video footage to allow them to reach a fair outcome.

Formal Resolution – we will move to this stage if we have been unable to resolve your complaint by Informal Resolution. This may be because we did not complete our review within the timeframe, due to its complexity or the unavailability of necessary information, or because we provided our informal resolution, but you didn’t accept it.

We have 20 days from when we acknowledge the case has moved to Formal Resolution to issue our final written response although we will always respond sooner where possible.

If we aren’t able to provide our Formal Resolution within 20 days we will let you know as soon as possible and outline your options.

To support the continuous improvement of our people and processes, the details of all complaints are captured, regardless of the resolution type, analysed by an appropriate person / department and reported within our organisation and industry sector.

What if you aren’t Satisfied with our Response

If our complaints process has been exhausted and you remain dissatisfied with the outcome reached, for events from January 1^st 2025, you can refer your case to,

Enforcement Conduct Board (ECB)

10 Queen Street Place,
London,
EC4R 1BE

For general enquires, contact us at Contact@enforcementconductboard.org

Please note you have the longer of 3 months from when you reasonably could have been aware you had a complaint or 1 month from our final response to your complaint.  If you refer your complaint after this period, the ECB may not consider your complaint.

Protecting our Staff

Unreasonable Behaviour

We will take a case-by-case approach to deciding whether a behaviour is unacceptable, and examples provided are not exhaustive.

However generally, examples of behaviour that we won’t tolerate are grouped under two broad headings:

• behaviour that is unacceptable because it is aggressive or abusive, including the use of offensive language
• behaviour that is unacceptable because of the unreasonable nature of the engagement with us

There may be times when the tone, frequency or both of communications become excessive, disproportionate, and unreasonable.

Examples of this behaviour include, but are not limited to:

• asking for a response within an unreasonable timescale
• repeatedly contacting or asking to speak to a particular member of staff who is not the right person to talk to
• making repeated contact via phone, email, post or social media at a volume that we consider excessive
• sending duplicate correspondence requiring a response to more than one member of staff
• acting in a way that presents barriers to our progressing a complaint including not providing information and / or evidence without a reason
• not accepting our decision and continuing to contact us about it after our process is exhausted

What we will do if behaviour is unreasonable

Where someone continues to communicate in an unacceptable manner, or where the conduct is of a particularly serious nature, we will restrict contact or alter our approach to protect our people.

It should be noted that we will continue with enforcement activity albeit in a way to protect our staff from unacceptable behaviours or potential violence. The precise nature and action will be appropriate and proportionate to the nature of the unacceptable behaviour and the circumstances of our staff and the customer.

Among other things we may:

• in the case of a complaint that has been through all stages of our process cease correspondence
• for other, non-complaint, correspondence we will consider ending all contact for a specified period of time or about a specified topic – we will accept correspondence from a 3^rd party in these circumstances as long as it is reasonable
• in the case of threats of violence, we will consider referral to the police or we will restrict / alter our approach
• in the case of actual violence, we will always report to the police and will fully support in any prosecution

When deciding to restrict contact, we will consider any special requirements of those affected by our decision and will continue to communicate with 3^rd party advocates.

Aggressive, abusive, or offensive language or behaviour

All of our staff, whether they work in one of our offices or externally, have the right to a safe work environment and not to be subjected to aggressive, abusive or offensive language or behaviour, regardless of the circumstances.

This includes behaviour relating to any protected characteristic they may have, as defined by the Equality Act 2010 (age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation).

Examples of this behaviour include, but are not limited to:

• threats of physical violence
• swearing
• inappropriate cultural, sexist, racial or religious references; and
• rudeness, including derogatory remarks
• persistently and repeatedly raising unsubstantiated accusations against staff members

Violence is not restricted to acts of aggression that may result in physical harm. It also includes behaviour or language (written or spoken) that may cause (or may have the potential to cause) staff to feel distressed, threatened or abused.

Telephone Calls

If a customer’s language or behaviour on the phone is unacceptable as set out in this policy, our people have the right to put them on hold or to end the call. However, before taking such action, we will usually try to warn the caller that their conduct is unacceptable and allow them the opportunity to moderate their behaviour.

We may decide to arrange for a single, named member of staff to deal with all future calls or correspondence from the customer. If a customer consistently behaves in an unacceptable way on the phone, a more permanent restriction may be considered, for example ‘call barring’ their phone number for inbound calls.

Support for employees

Additional support will be offered to the employee who experienced the unreasonable behaviour e.g. mental health first aider, employee support network