Complaints procedure

• The standard of service we provide.
• The operation of our self-assessment tool — including payment, the delivery of your documents, and access to your account.
• The conduct of our staff and of the volunteers involved in a Panel assessment arranged through us.
• Any action, or absence of action, by our staff or volunteers affecting an individual or organisation.
• Circumstances where you consider our staff or volunteers have not acted in accordance with the Nolan Principles of Public Life.

• Reconsidering the merits of a scheme.
• Reconsidering the opinions or suggestions of volunteer Panel members.
• Reconsidering the information taken into account in carrying out a Panel assessment.
• Adding to or amending a Design Review Panel Certificate or feedback document.
• Reconsidering the outcome of your own self-assessment. The outcome follows from the answers you gave, applying the published rule set out on our How it works page. If you believe we have applied that rule incorrectly, or that the tool has recorded your answers wrongly, that is a complaint and section 1 covers it. If you have changed your mind about an answer, that is a new assessment rather than a complaint.
• Amending a finalised self-assessment. Finalising locks the record deliberately. Where something is factually wrong, we issue a corrected version alongside a record of the correction, as our terms of sale set out — we do not alter the original.
• The actions of local planning authorities, or of any other party outside our control.
• Government or local planning policy.
• Matters we have already answered in full.

A Design Review Panel Certificate and any accompanying feedback are the final view of the Panel following its assessment, and will not be altered. Their content is opinion and suggestion only, given by volunteers, and does not constitute professional advice. We may correct minor typographical errors, at our discretion, and only where an error would materially change how the Panel’s meaning is understood by a third party.

Anyone who has bought from us, or who is directly affected by something we have done.

We will also consider a concern raised by someone who is not our customer where it relates to the accuracy of a certificate we have issued, or to the way one is being represented by someone else. We would rather know than not: the value of what we issue depends on it meaning what it says.

We acknowledge every complaint within 5 working days, so that you know it has reached someone.

We aim to give a full answer within 21 working days of that acknowledgement. The same targets apply at Stage 2.

Paid documents not delivered. If your complaint is that we took payment and did not deliver your documents, we aim to resolve it within 7 working days of receiving the complaint. We check the payment and delivery records; either we supply or reissue the correct documents, or, if we cannot, we refund you.

Where volunteers or other third parties must be consulted, a complaint is unusually complex, or a relevant person is unavailable, we may take longer than the above. If so we will tell you, explain why, and give you a date.

We take our data protection responsibilities seriously. How we handle information you give us is set out in our privacy notice. Investigating a complaint may mean sharing the details with the people involved, including volunteer Panel members, and we will limit that to what the investigation requires.

If your complaint is about how we have handled your personal information, you may also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk at any point. You do not need to come to us first, though we would prefer the chance to put it right.

If something has gone wrong with an assessment still in progress, contact us first at info@bhlassessments.co.uk or 01392 927799. Most things are resolved quickly this way and do not need a formal complaint.

Please complain as soon as the reason becomes apparent. We will not consider a complaint made more than one year after the issue of the document or the event it concerns.

Set out your complaint in full, with as much detail as you can, and tell us what outcome you are looking for.

By email: info@bhlassessments.co.uk
In writing: BHL Assessments Ltd, Alphinbrook Business Centre, Alphinbrook Road, Marsh Barton Trading Estate, Exeter, EX2 8QR

Stage 1

The Service Manager answers your complaint. (The Service Manager is the person responsible for administering assessments at BHL Assessments Ltd.)

In investigating, the Service Manager may check facts against project documentation and our records, and may ask volunteer Panel members or staff for their account. In some cases a party outside the organisation may be asked for their general observations. Where specialist knowledge is needed, the complaint may be referred to a third party for review to help reach an independent view — the reply still comes from the Service Manager.

Stage 2

If you are not satisfied with the Stage 1 reply, you may ask for it to be reviewed. This is your right and does not depend on our agreement.

The review is carried out by one of the senior Panel chairs named in section 9, who considers both the substance of your complaint and how it was handled, and provides a final reply.

Stage 3

Stage 2 concludes this procedure, but it does not end your options. Depending on the matter, you may pursue it under our terms of sale, complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office about the handling of your information, or take the matter elsewhere. If you are a consumer, your legal rights are unaffected by anything in this procedure.

Where a complaint concerns the conduct or decisions of the Service Manager personally, or the conduct of a Panel assessment or of Panel members, it is not considered by the Service Manager at any stage. It goes directly to one of the following senior Panel chairs, either of whom may act:

• Tim Burton
• Andy Robbins

Neither is an employee, officer or shareholder of BHL Assessments Ltd or of Design Review Ltd, and neither takes any part in the commercial operation of either company.

The chair who considers a complaint must have taken no part in the assessment to which it relates, and must have no connection to the scheme, the applicant or the design team. Where both are conflicted or unavailable, the complaint is referred to another senior Panel chair meeting the same conditions, and we tell you who is considering it and why.

Complaints about our administration of a Panel assessment — how it was arranged, when it was delivered, how we communicated — are handled at Stage 1 in the ordinary way.

Where we have got something wrong we will write to you explaining what happened. The staff or volunteers responsible are told the outcome, and we look at whether the same thing can be prevented in future.

What we can offer depends on what the complaint is about, and the distinction matters.

Where the complaint concerns our service or the tool

Our remedies include:

• an apology, an explanation, and an acknowledgement of responsibility;
• correcting the error — including issuing a corrected version of a document, or reissuing one that failed to arrive;
• a refund, in full, where we took payment and failed to deliver what was paid for, or delivered something wrong because of a fault in our system;
• remedial action such as changing our procedures, revising published material, or improving the tool.

A refund in these circumstances is not discretionary and you do not need to persuade us it is fair. Our terms of sale set out the position, and if you are a consumer your statutory rights sit alongside it.

Where the complaint concerns the content of a Panel assessment

The position here follows the Panel’s own, and differs from the above for a reason worth stating: the Panel’s conclusions are the independent opinion of volunteers, and a service that revised its opinions when a customer was unhappy would not be independent at all.

Our remedies include:

• an apology, an explanation, and an acknowledgement of responsibility;
• remedial action, such as revising procedures, guidance or training.

In most cases an explanation and an apology are the appropriate response.

Exceptionally, and at our discretion, where we accept that unmerited feedback resulted from a procedural error on our part or the Panel’s, we may offer a follow-up second-opinion desktop review by a panel of three volunteers at a reduced cost of £950 to cover administrative costs.

The merits of an assessment are not revisited, the opinions of volunteer Panel members are not reconsidered, and no financial compensation is given in respect of the content of an assessment. A conclusion you did not want is not an error.

Where a Panel assessment is late

If we accept expedited feedback and the certificate is issued later than 7 working days after the latest of our confirming the booking, receiving cleared payment and receiving the information for review, we refund the expedited fee in full, whatever the reason. The assessment continues and the underlying fee is unaffected.

We record every complaint, what we found and what we did. We review those records periodically to see whether the same thing keeps happening, and we would rather change something than answer the same complaint twice.

We also welcome suggestions that are not complaints. If something about the tool or the service could be better, tell us at info@bhlassessments.co.uk.