Complaints
How to Make a Complaint
What is a complaint?
At Ark, we are committed to providing a high standard of service to our tenants and supported people. However, we accept that despite our best efforts, there may be occasions where you are not fully satisfied with the service that we have provided. If this is the case, then we want to know about it.
If you tell us that you are unhappy with the service provided by (or on behalf of) Ark, this is a complaint. Anyone who receives, requests or is affected by our services is entitled to make a complaint. You might be a supported person, a tenant, a relative of someone receiving support, a day service provider, a health professional, an advocate, a neighbour or a member of the public.
How do I complain?
You can make a complaint in any way that you choose:
• Speak to your local Ark Care and Support team
• Call us on: 0131 447 9027
• Write to us at: Ark, The Priory, Canaan Lane, Edinburgh, EH10 4SG
• Complete a copy of our complaint form or our easy read complaint form and return it to us at the above address.
• Or, email us using our online form
What help is available?
We will ensure that you have the help you need to make a complaint, should you wish to do so. We have shared copies of our Customer Facing Guide to our Complaints Handling Procedure with the tenants and service users that we support, in a format which is accessible. We can provide copies of this policy in Easy Read, audio, braille, and many languages other than English. If you would like us to send you a copy of our Complaints Policy in any of these formats, please let us know.
The Scottish Housing Regulator has also published information leaflets for tenants about Complaints and Significant Performance Failures.
We understand that sometimes people can feel quite worried about complaining and might not feel able to make a complaint by themselves. Where this is the case, you might choose to ask a friend, family member or advocate to make a complaint on your behalf. Another option you might choose is to make an anonymous complaint. This would mean that Ark are still able to look at the issues that you have raised, but you would not receive any further contact or information about your complaint.
The most important thing is that we always encourage you to let us know if you are not happy, as this means that we can do something to address your concerns.
What happens after I’ve made a complaint?
We believe that it is better to resolve complaints at our frontline stage, where we can. In these cases, we will speak to you about your complaint within 5 working days. Occasionally, it is not possible to deal with a complaint at the frontline stage due to the nature of the concerns that we have received. In these cases, and in cases where you are not happy with our frontline response, we will write to you to let you know that we have received your complaint and to let you know who will be dealing with it. We will then fully investigate your complaint and respond to you in writing within 20 working days. We will explain our findings to you and let you know what we have put in place to address your concerns.
Complaint Updates
We produce a 3-monthly report about the recent complaints that we have received at Ark, including what we have learned from these complaints and how this has helped us to improve our services. Our complaints reports for the last 12 months are available below:
Make A Complaint
You can contact us here to make a complaint.