Complaints Policy

It is recognised that Club or community members may raise concerns / complaints that need to be resolved in the interest of maintaining good relationships.

The Club Committee believes that:

• People have the right to have their grievances receive careful consideration through established processes that are timely and based on the principles of fairness and natural justice;
• All parties will be treated with dignity and respect, and underpinned by our values.
• Where a formal complaint is received by the Committee it will be considered in a timely and sensitive manner to achieve an outcome.

What is a ‘complaint’?

A complaint is an expression of dissatisfaction made to the Club Committee, related to its services or personnel where a response or resolution is expected.

Complaints must be lodged in writing, addressed to the Secretary within 7 days of the incident and may be received by letter or email. The Committee may, at its discretion, extend this time period if it considers that exceptional circumstances exist.

These policies and procedures apply to all complaints (other than complaints made under the Tennis Australia Member Protection Policy) received by the Committee.

The following will not be considered as a complaint, and as such will not be actioned:

• If it is made anonymously,
• If it is a matter of disagreeing with one of the Heatherdale Tennis Club’s policies,
• If it is a matter of disagreeing with wider government policy,
• If a report is made more than 7 days after the incident.

Complaints made under the Tennis Australia Member Protection Policy will be handled in accordance with that policy.

Procedure

Once a formal complaint is received it will be entered into the Complaints Register and listed for consideration at the next scheduled Committee meeting.

Complaints will be investigated by a Sub-Committee made up of the President (or his/her Delegate) and two other Committee members. This Sub-Committee may seek any advice or support as it deems necessary to ensure a fair and reasonable outcome.

All complaints must be submitted in writing and lodged with the Secretary within 7 days of the alleged incident.

In conducting its investigation, Complaints Sub-Committee is empowered to undertake the enquiry as it deems necessary. This includes conducting interviews with any witnesses, players, members or complainants concerned but shall be under no obligation to do so.

The Sub-Committee shall invite a response from any person who is the subject of the complaint. Such explanations concerning alleged breaches of conduct must be requested in writing by the Sub-Committee and any reply or explanation must be lodged in writing with the Secretary within seven (7) days of such a request to be taken into consideration.

The Complaints Sub-Committee shall, after conducting its investigation, determine the veracity of the complaint. This will include whether any person has breached the Heatherdale Code of Conduct or been guilty of misconduct general.

Upon making a determination of a complaint, the findings shall be reported to the Committee. Where a person is found to have breached the Heatherdale Code of Conduct the Committee will determine the disciplinary action.

Unreasonable complaints

Unreasonable complaints are those that, because of the nature of the contact or frequency with which the complaint is pursued, hinder the Committee’s ability to properly consider the matters at hand or place unwarranted demands on Committee members’ time.

Some examples of the actions and behaviours that may lead the Committee to deem a complaint unreasonable:

• Refusing to specify the grounds of a complaint,
• Refusing to cooperate with the complaints procedure while still wishing the complaint to be resolved,
• Refusing to accept that some issues are not within the remit of our complaints procedure despite having been provided with the information,
• Changing the basis of the complaint while the procedure is in process,
• Introducing trivial or irrelevant new information or raising large numbers of detailed but unimportant questions and insisting they are all fully answered,
• Adopting a ‘scattergun approach’: repeatedly contacting different members of Committee with different information and/or questions, or pursuing a complaint simultaneously with several different public bodies.