Making a complaint

We take the job of supporting victims and witnesses very seriously and pride ourselves on the number of people who say they are satisfied with the help we’ve given them. But, like every organisation, we can sometimes get it wrong, and some people will be less happy about their experience with our charity.

If you are unhappy with the service we’ve given you, we’d like to hear from you – whether it’s simply to let us know you’re dissatisfied or if you’d like us to go further and take action to put things right.

We have a standard complaints process that we will follow in every case. We will aim to treat you with respect and courtesy throughout and keep you informed about what we are doing. The process is designed to: 

  • be fair and transparent
  • resolve any complaint quickly and effectively
  • help us improve our services in the future
  • be clear and easy to understand and access
  • provide timely and accurate information
  • be confidential
  • be used consistently (we will monitor this).

How we handle complaints and issues

You can raise an issue or complaint over the phone, or by letter (see the 'contact us' section for numbers and addresses). You can also make a complaint by email. If you would like to raise an issue or complaint now, please email contact@victimsupport.org.uk giving as much information about the situation as possible.

Normally we will only deal with complaints within six months of when a problem occurred or came to light. We will keep a record of every complaint or issue raised and quickly let you know we have received your complaint (usually within five working days). If you have any special needs, we will do all we can to make it easy for you to make a complaint or help you through the process.

As a first step, we will try to resolve an issue informally. This will normally be handled by the local divisional manager and we aim to resolve things within ten working days of hearing from you. If you are happy with our response at this stage, the process will end.

If you are not happy with this initial attempt to resolve things, the matter will be passed to our Chief Executive’s office as a formal complaint. At this stage we will need you to put your complaint in writing, if you haven’t already. It will then be allocated to one of our corporate directors to deal with.

We’ll acknowledge your formal complaint within a couple of working days, and then write to you within 20 working days of to let you know we are investigating the issue. Normally, the corporate director will ask another manager to investigate for you but will also supervise the process. You may need to answer some questions at this stage and you'll be asked to give us any evidence you have such as letters, or details of things that happened. You will also be able to tell us what you would like done about the problem. We will keep you informed about progress, but will write to you to tell you the outcome as soon as possible.

If you are still unhappy after this stage, you can appeal. Our full procedure gives details about when and how you can do this. The matter will be escalated back to the corporate director and our Chief Executive or Board of Trustees if necessary. Any decision made about your complaint by the Chief Executive or Board will be final.

This is only a summary of our complaints process: download a copy of the complaints policy(48 KB) for more details.

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