Feedback and complaints

Complaints handling policy

How to make a formal complaint and how we will handle it.

Information for complainants

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.

Making a complaint

Stage one – Customer Services

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:

• Provide you with an acknowledgement within five working days
• If necessary, clarify with you what the problem is and what it is that you want to happen
• Investigate your complaint
• Provide you with a response within 20 working days of the acknowledgement being sent in relation to every substantive matter that you have raised, or if this is not possible, provide you with a progress update and a new estimated date for a final response.

During this stage our Customer Services team will take one of three actions. They will either:

• Take immediate action to resolve the problem
• Ask the relevant Service Manager to take action to either resolve the problem, or else explain why this is not possible
• Decide that the nature of the complaint is serious or complex enough to escalate it immediately to Stage 2 of this Complaints Handling Policy.

Stage two – Formal Complaint and Management Investigation

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:

• What it is that you are specifically complaining about. This may be:
  • a system or process
  • a specific instance or outcome of a process
  • a person
• What it is that you want to happen
• What it is that you want to be investigated
• Why you are unhappy with our previous response (if relevant).

Upon receipt we will:

• Acknowledge your complaint within 10 working days
• Provide a final response to you within 20 working days.

During this stage we will take one of two actions. We will either:

• Inform you within 10 working days why we do not believe a management investigation into your complaint is appropriate, and where relevant, inform you of any other actions we are taking
• Nominate an appropriate senior manager (of at least Grade A or higher) to carry out an impartial and thorough investigation into the issue that you have raised.

Where relevant, in our response we will for each substantive element of your complaint:

• Acknowledge when things have gone wrong, explain why this happened, and offer our apologies
• Tell you how we will put things right
• Explain what we will do to ensure that the situation does not happen again

OR we will explain fully why we do not believe that your complaint requires further action.

Stage three – Appeal

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:

• Acknowledge your appeal within 10 working days
• Provide a final response to you within 20 working days, or if this is not possible, provide you with a progress update and a new estimated date for a final response.

During this stage we will take one of two actions. We will either:

• Inform you within 10 working days why we do not believe that any further investigation is appropriate, and, if relevant, inform you of any other actions we are taking
• Nominate a Board Member, Chief Officer or other sufficiently senior officer of the Library to consider your appeal on behalf of the British Library Board. During this stage we will only consider:
  • Whether our investigation into your complaint was carried out properly
  • Whether our investigation into to your complaint was incorrect on any matter of fact
  • Whether our response to your complaint was fair and appropriate.

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:

• Explain to you whether or not we believe that your complaint was handled properly, and why
• Provide you with a copy of any new or revised response to your complaint.

And where relevant we will:

• Acknowledge when things have gone wrong, explain why this happened, and offer our apologies
• Tell you how we will put things right
• Explain what we will do to ensure that the situation does not happen again.

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.

Parliamentary & Health Service Ombudsman

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

Time limits for making complaints

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.

The scope of this complaints policy

Complaint issues

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

• are of a criminal nature
• are relating to collection security, fraud or discrimination
• arise out of the Library’s alleged failure to comply with the Data Protection Act 2018
• arise from a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000
• arise in relation to licensing terms and conditions granted under the Re-Use of Public Sector Information Regulations 2015
• are about issues in which the Library is taking, or proposes to take, disciplinary proceedings
• are being, or have been, investigated by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.

Complaints relating to serious breach of collection security, fraud, discrimination or a serious breach of the Library’s Code of Service

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.

Freedom of information, re-use of public sector information, and data protection issues.

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.

Possible disciplinary proceedings

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.

Vexatious complaints

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:

• Has no genuine substance or is otherwise unreasonable or vexatious
• Is abusive or threatening
• Maliciously and unreasonably targets at an individual member of staff
• Is continued or repeated after an appeal has been considered on behalf of the British Library Board
• Attempts to bypass intermediate stages of the process set out in the this Complaints Handling Policy (for example, the Board will not consider a complaint that has not first been investigated as part of our formal complaints process).

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.

General points

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.