Complaint checklist

Below is a list of details which may be of assistance to you in formulating your complaint.

1. Name the person or organisation against whom the complaint is lodged. Is the person or organisation you are complaining about a current member of BACP?
2. Check your complaint against the timescale at 1.5 of the Professional Conduct Procedure.
3. Have legal proceedings been issued or contemplated regarding the matters forming the subject matter of the complaint? If yes, please contact the Professional Conduct Department as this may prohibit your complaint being processed at this time.
4. Give details of how you have tried to resolve the matter with the practitioner, i.e. through direct contact, using mediation (or other service) or through any internal complaints procedure. If no attempt has been made to resolve the matter, give an explanation as to why this has not been possible. Copies of any correspondence relating to this matter should be attached to your complaint.
5. Provide exact details of events that are the subject matter of the complaint, including times, dates and places supported by as much evidence as possible. It is useful to open with a summary of the situation before going into the exact details of your complaint.
6. Witness statements could provide evidence of the occurrence of events.
7. Evidence could be supplied in the form of documents, contemporaneous notes, pre-counselling or pre-training literature, diary entries, advertising material and correspondence etc.
8. Where evidence is supplied, it should be attached to the complaint as appendices and clearly referenced in the body of the complaint.
9. Please ensure, wherever possible, that your submission is written on one side of each sheet of paper only to assist in the reproduction of the submission. Wherever possible, please avoid using colour.
10. A copy of the submitted complaint will be seen by the member complained against. Therefore, you must be aware of what contact details you include in the complaint submission. If you do not wish the member complained against to have sight of your personal details or that of third parties, please exclude them from your submission, but your contact details must be included in the covering letter to BACP.
11. The complaint should be signed and dated.

If you need to obtain further guidance on the presentation of your complaint, or some of the checklist questions require explanation, please call the Professional Conduct Department on 0870 443 5216 where a member of staff will be available to speak to you. While staff can speak about the presentation of the complaint, they are not able to advise on either the contents or merits of the complaint.

April 2007