Feedback and complaints
We are committed to providing excellent service and welcome feedback to improve what we offer. Find out how to send us feedback or make a formal complaint.
We are committed to providing excellent service and welcome feedback to improve what we offer. Find out how to send us feedback or make a formal complaint.
How to make a formal complaint and how we will handle it.
The British Library is committed to providing excellent service, and we invite feedback to ensure continuous improvement of the services and facilities we provide. However, we recognise that sometimes we may not always provide the high level of service to which we aspire.
Here we set out how you can make a complaint about any matter you think is unsatisfactory about the service you have received at, or from, the British Library and what you can expect from us in response.
Problems are often resolved simply and quickly by speaking to a member of our Customer Services team, who you can contact at:
Mailing address
Customer Services
The British Library
Boston Spa
Wetherby
West Yorkshire
LS23 7BQ
Email: customer@bl.uk
Alternatively, you can fill in a Comment Form which are available in every Reading Room, at the Information Desk, and in the Members' Room.
Upon receiving a complaint, our Customer Services team will:
During this stage our Customer Services team will take one of three actions. They will either:
If you are not satisfied with the response from Stage 1, you can request escalation to a Senior Manager.
To do this, please put your complaint in writing and send it to our Customer Services team at the mailing address or email address above.
So that we can provide you with the best possible service, when you contact us please tell us:
Upon receipt we will:
During this stage we will take one of two actions. We will either:
Where relevant, in our response we will for each substantive element of your complaint:
OR we will explain fully why we do not believe that your complaint requires further action.
If you remain dissatisfied after the second-stage response to your complaint, you may appeal against the outcome to the British Library Board.
To do this, please put your appeal in writing and send it to our Customer Services team at the mailing address or email address above.
In order to allow your appeal to be considered properly, when you write you should make sure to tell us why you do not believe that your complaint has not been properly dealt with.
When you make an appeal to the Board we will:
During this stage we will take one of two actions. We will either:
If we conclude that our previous investigation was not carried out properly then a more detailed investigation will be completed before we make a final response to your appeal.
In our response to your appeal we will:
And where relevant we will:
The Library reserves the right to refuse to enter into further correspondence about any matter that has received a final response on behalf of the British Library Board as part of Stage 3 of this Complaints Handling Policy.
If you are not satisfied with the Chair’s reply, you have the option of writing to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, who can investigate complaints about government departments and agencies in the UK and the NHS in England. You may write to:
The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman
Millbank Tower
Millbank
London
SW1P 4QP
Complaints Helpline Tel: 0345 015 4033
http://www.ombudsman.org.uk/make-a-complaint
A complaint should be made as soon as possible after the matter giving rise to it and, in any case, within six calendar months of the incident occurring.
If you were not aware at the relevant time that there was cause for complaint, your complaint should normally be made as soon as possible after you became aware of it and, in any case, no more than six calendar months after becoming aware.
Exceptionally, our Customer Services Manager has discretion to extend the above time limits where it is unreasonable to expect that your complaint should have been made earlier, and it is still possible to investigate the matter in question.
A complaint may be about any matter reasonably connected with the exercise of the Library’s functions unless it is about a specific matter that may require resolution by other means, as specified below. These include matters which
The Library’s complaints procedure is not appropriate for investigating matters of a serious criminal nature (such as accusations of criminal damage, serious breaches of collection security, fraud, discrimination, etc.).
In such circumstances the Customer Services Manager will immediately refer the matter to the Head of Human Resources to determine the correct course of action, which may involve direct referral to the police or other appropriate authorities.
Any matters that may be identified within a complaint that refer to either a Freedom of Information request, a request made under the Public Sector Information Regulations, or a Data Protection issue, will be immediately referred to the Library’s Corporate Information Management Unit for handling in line with complaints handling procedures set by the Information Commissioner.
The Library’s complaints procedure is concerned only with resolving complaints and not with investigating disciplinary matters.
Consideration of whether or not disciplinary action is warranted is a separate matter for management and is subject to a separate process of investigation. However, information gathered during the complaints procedure may be made available for a disciplinary investigation.
If disciplinary action arising from the event(s) in question is subsequently taken against a member of staff, the Library is under no obligation to disclose the outcome of those proceedings with you.
The Library will endeavour to provide all reasonable assistance to our users in resolving service issues and helping users with a complaint to navigate through the process set out in this Complaints Handling Policy.
However, the Library reserves the right to refuse to investigate or correspond on where a complaint:
Where a complaint is deemed to be vexatious the Library will within 20 working days notify the complainant and inform them of why we will not be investigating it.
Library staff are expected to treat all of our users politely and with respect. In return, we will not tolerate any behaviour towards our staff that is of a personal, abusive, discriminatory, or threatening nature.
We will ensure that our complaints process is available to all of our users.
To ensure the effectiveness of the complaints process and enable staff to understand the complaints procedure, appropriate training will be made available for all Library staff who have a role to play in the Complaints Handling process.
The Library will not normally offer financial compensation for errors made or poor service.
To facilitate the process of making a complaint, the Library’s policy and procedure relating to complaints will be widely publicised internally and externally using a variety of media; in particular, it will be published on our website and in our Reading Rooms, and all Library staff will assist users to make a complaint if asked.
The Library will regularly review the complaints that we receive in order to make improvements to our services. This policy will be updated whenever these reviews identify weaknesses in the Complaints Handling Policy itself.
This Policy will be reviewed every five years to ensure that it continues to meet the needs of our users and remains aligned to the Principles of Good Complaint Handling published by the Parliamentary & Health Services Ombudsman.
We welcome feedback to improve what we offer. Please contact us if you have any questions, want to send us feedback or make a formal complaint.
Email customer@bl.uk