Managing Complaints

Like all other public agencies, the Northern Rivers CMA from time to time receives complaints about the decisions and actions of the Board and/or staff. We are committed to ensuring that these complaints are promptly and properly dealt with.

 Accordingly, we have established a system for assessing and responding to complaints. This system is designed to provide an objective assessment of the issues raised, consider all parties involved, and enable an appropriate response for each situation.

Our policy

People who make complaints are entitled to a review of the issues they raise and a considered response. Each complaint will be assessed or investigated and resolved as quickly as reasonably possible.  When errors or systemic problems are identified, the Northern Rivers CMA will work to rectify them. When allegations of improper or corrupt behaviour are found to be true, appropriate action will be taken in accordance with the established Premier's Department guidelines.

Defining a 'complaint'

The Northern Rivers CMA defines complaints as expressions of dissatisfaction with its service delivery and any associated administrative matters such as decisions, procedures, where the complainant requests or demands that the Northern Rivers CMA reconsider a decision or take some form of remedial action. (Where people express dissatisfaction with the Northern Rivers CMA but do not expect further action to be taken, their views are noted but are not treated as 'complaints' under the agency's complaints handling system.)

Complaints may concern fairly straightforward issues. They include claims of incorrect advice and expressions of dissatisfaction with delays. Some complaints are capable of being resolved fairly quickly without the need for in-depth consideration and assessment or detailed reporting. Others will require more detailed work to be done. In either case the Northern Rivers CMA takes seriously the process for looking into and resolving them.

Managing complaints

The purpose of complaints handling is to resolve the matter, rather than to apportion blame. The Northern Rivers CMA's approach is to establish the facts and put in place any measures necessary to resolve the problem, including dealing with any underlying causes of complaints.

This approach allows complaints to be handled speedily without the need for formal investigations. However, if in the course of handling a complaint, information is obtained that suggests that a Northern Rivers CMA staff member may have acted improperly or corruptly, the matter will be formally investigated:

• in accordance with DECC's internal investigation guidelines if there is alleged corrupt conduct
• in accordance with Premier's Department disciplinary guidelines if there is alleged misconduct, which may or may not be related to alleged corrupt conduct.

Vexatious complainants

Occasionally complainants refuse to accept the Northern Rivers CMA assessments and conclusions regarding their complaints and may pursue a strategy of frequently lodging complaints about the same issues with various Northern Rivers CMA officers or other agencies. This behaviour may constitute harassment and has the potential to inappropriately distract us from our service delivery priorities. People who take this course of action may be considered to be vexatious complainants.

The decision to treat a complainant as 'vexatious' is not made lightly. It is taken only if we are confident that all the issues raised in the complaint have been properly addressed and full assessments and conclusions reported to the complainant. In such cases the Northern Rivers CMA may decide to no longer respond to issues that have already been dealt with. Where this is the case, a letter signed by the General Manager will be sent to the complainant advising that we will no longer respond to matters already considered and responded to.

However, it is important to note that if a vexatious complainant raises new issues which have not previously been dealt with, we will consider and respond to those new issues.

When you need to lodge a complaint

The Northern Rivers CMA will deal with any complaint in accord with our established procedures, regardless of how that complaint is received. However, we can most effectively deal with these matters if complaints are made:

• in writing where possible, as this helps ensure that everyone has the same understanding of the problem and that no aspect of the complaint is overlooked. We understand, however, that not everyone is able or comfortable to make their complaint in writing. Verbal complaints will still be taken seriously and properly dealt with
• directly to the Northern Rivers CMA (at least in the first instance) so that we know about and can deal with the problem quickly
• by providing a name and contact details so that if we need to get further information to help resolve the problem, we can do so.

You can visit, write to or telephone your local CMA office, or write to the General Manager at our head office. The contact details for all our offices are listed under Contacts.

If you wish to make an allegation of some form of serious misconduct, it is appropriate that you write direct to the General Manager, marking your letter 'confidential'.

What to expect from us

The Northern Rivers CMA will deal with any complaint as quickly as possible. We will try to resolve the matter within 21 days of receiving it. However, if this is not possible, we will contact you to advise of the reason for the delay and when we expect to be able to report back to you. Once a complaint has been dealt with, we will contact you to let you know what we have done, or are doing in relation to your complaint.

We may also contact you for further information or to clarify some points to help us resolve the issue.

Complaints to external agencies

Members of the public may complain about the performance or behaviour of the Northern Rivers CMA or of individual staff members to the NSW Ombudsman, the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) or other agencies such as Privacy NSW.

The Ombudsman or ICAC may determine that the complaint is of such importance or sensitivity as to warrant their independent investigation and public report, and they may conduct those investigations themselves. In most cases, however, complaints are forwarded to the Northern Rivers CMA for review and report back.

Other complaint handling agencies also usually refer complaints back to the Northern Rivers CMA for us to review and report back to them on what we have done, or propose to do.

Further information

For further information, please contact us.

The Northern Rivers CMA approach to managing complaints and allegations is based on the standards of customer service, accountability and administrative behaviour set out in the Premier's Memorandum 95-29, Frontline Complaint Handling and the NSW Ombudsman's Effective Complaint Handling guidelines (2000).