Purpose

The purpose of this policy is to describe how the Paul Ramsay Foundation will receive and respond to external feedback and complaints made about any of its programs, grants, or other activities.

A fair, efficient and effective method for receiving and responding to feedback and complaints is important to informing how the Foundation carries out its work, identifying opportunities for improvement and ensuring it responds to concerns.

1. Our commitment

In receiving feedback and complaints, the Paul Ramsay Foundation is committed to:

  • enabling grant partner organisations, their employees, program participants and other stakeholders to give feedback and make complaints about our programs, grants, or other activities;
  • responding to complaints in a timely manner;
  • responding on a non-discriminatory, inclusive basis;
  • ensuring that any person or organisations who makes a complaint does not receive any adverse treatment by us as a result of making that complaint;
  • communicating to complainants the outcomes of our deliberations;
  • ensuring that complaints are dealt with by appropriately knowledgeable and senior staff; and
  • improving our practices.

2. Scope

In scope

Feedback and complaints about any programs, grants, or other activities of the Paul Ramsay Foundation may be given or made under this Policy.

This includes programs and activities carried out by our partner organisations with the support of a Paul Ramsay Foundation grant. If you have not sought to raise the issue directly with our partner organisation, we may suggest that you do so before we get involved.

Out of scope

  • ‍Child safety: We will handle any information, concerns or complaints about the safety of a child or young person in accordance with our Child Safety Policy. If you have any child safety concerns, please notify the Foundation’s Child Safety Officer.‍
  • Whistleblowing: Whistleblowing refers to reports of misconduct, usually in breach of corporate or financial laws, from a company or organisation’s employees, or their spouses and relatives, who observe or are affected by misconduct and may face reprisals for reporting it. We will handle whistleblower reports in accordance with our Whistleblower Protection Policy. ‍
  • Internal feedback and complaints: We will handle any complaints from Paul Ramsay Foundation employees under our internal policies.

3. Definitions

Feedback is a compliment, criticism, comment or suggestion where a response is not sought, or where it is not reasonable to expect a response.

A complaint is the expression of dissatisfaction in circumstances where a response is sought or reasonably expected.

Who can give feedback or make a complaint?

Feedback and complaints can be given or made by:  

  • our grant partner organisations, their employees and officers,
  • program participants,
  • alliance funding partners, their employees and officers,
  • other stakeholders, and
  • other interested persons.

4. Giving feedback or making a complaint

Feedback and complaints should be directed to:

Feedback Officer, Paul Ramsay Foundation
(02) 8582 4065
feedback@paulramsayfoundation.org.au

Feedback and complaints may be verbal or in writing. However, before we investigate a complaint we may ask that you describe it in writing for us.

To receive the assistance of a translator or interpreting service, please contact the Translating and Interpreting Service (TIS) on 13 14 50. The TIS is a free service provided by the Australian Government.

To receive assistance to contact us by phone if you have a speech or hearing impairment, please visit the National Relay Service (NRS) website: https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/media-communications-arts/phone/services-people-disability/accesshub/national-relay-service. The NRS is a free Australian Government service offering a phone voice relay service.

In the case of a complaint, we will acknowledge receipt and, where appropriate to the nature of the complaint, confirm that we will look into the matter.

5. Confidentiality

You can request that we handle your feedback or complaint confidentially. If you do so, we will take all reasonable steps to respect your request and handle your feedback or complaint confidentially or on a de-identified basis.

There may be circumstances in which legal or other requirements prevent us from maintaining confidentiality in respect of some types of information. For example, if you tell us about a possible criminal offence we will consider if we must pass that information on to the police.

6. No adverse treatment

We will ensure that any person or organisation who gives feedback or makes a complaint under this Policy does not receive any adverse treatment from us as a result of giving the feedback or making the complaint.

7. Resolving complaints

In handling your complaint, we will consider which person or persons should be responsible for considering and resolving the matter, and the steps that they should take. This will depend on the nature of the complaint. Accordingly, although we ask that complaints be made to the Feedback Officer, it may be that our Legal team or a particular operational department considers and responds to the complaint.

In the case of serious complaints, we may carry out an investigation. The investigation may be carried out by a senior member of our staff or an external investigator.  

We will communicate with you as to the progress of the consideration of your complaint, the outcome of your complaint, and any steps that we will take to improve the quality of our processes or practices in future.

Where you submit your complaint to the Feedback Officer via email, we commit to confirming receipt within 5 working days. We will then review the details of the complaint and respond within 10 working days. If we expect resolution to take longer, we will provide a further update on the status of the complaint.

8. Improvements to practices

We commit to improving the quality of our practices in response to feedback and complaints.

9. Opportunity to respond to outcome of complaint

We will give you an opportunity to respond to the outcome of the complaint.

10. Contact information

Complaints and any questions about this policy should be directed to:

Feedback Officer, Paul Ramsay Foundation
(02) 8582 4065
feedback@paulramsayfoundation.org.au

Last updated: August 2023