IStip aims to provide a high quality, responsive and professional service to schools. We take any issues or concerns raised by our schools extremely seriously and endeavour to deal with these effectively, and informally in the first instance. Should this prove impossible, the following policy sets out a formal complaints procedure for schools.

Process

A formal complaint against the Company or its staff (in writing or by telephone) will be acknowledged within seven working days.

A written response to the complaint will be made within three working weeks, even if the issue requires further investigation by the Company. During that time, every effort will be made to gather relevant information, and request further clarification from the complainant where necessary. In some cases, a follow-up response from IStip may be necessary.

In the first instance, complaints, together with details of the resolution sought, should be sent to the Executive Director, Judith Fenn, unless the complaint is made against her, in which case, to the Chair of Panel Claire Robinson. Full contact details may be found below.

Should the response of the Executive Director prove unsatisfactory to the complainant, there are two further stages to the process which may be followed:

1. Contact with the relevant Panel association representative
2. Contact with the Chair of Panel

In each case, complaints should be in writing, and should include any previous responses from IStip. An acknowledgement of the complaint will be made within seven working days, and a response given within three working weeks, unless it is felt the complaint should be discussed by a full session of the Panel, in which case the complainant will be informed of when this is likely to be, and when a response will be made. If full resolution is still not achieved, the matter will be referred to Board.

All formal complaints will be brought to the attention of the Panel (in matters of statutory induction) and the Board.

Contacts

Further contact details for Association Panel and IStip Board representatives are also available on this website.

Download this policy

You can download a current copy of this complaints policy as a Microsoft Word DOCX document.

Revision history

Agreed by board in March 2012. Reviewed March 2014, December 2016 and most recently in July 2017.