Community services

Our options for dealing with your complaint

Who can you complain about?

We handle complaints about most community service providers in NSW including:

the NSW Department of Community Services (DoCS)
the NSW Department of Ageing, Disability and Home Care (DADHC)
non-government services funded, licensed or authorised by the Minister for Community Services, Minister for Ageing and Minister for Disability Services.

Funded services include child care, family support, out-of-home care, home and community care (HACC), disability accommodation and support, and supported accommodation or SAAP services.

Licensed services include boarding houses, child care and out-of-home care services.

What can you complain about?

You can make a complaint by speaking or writing to us if you believe that a service provider has acted unreasonably:

in the way they provide or manage a service to someone
by not providing a service to someone
by withdrawing or changing a service to someone
by providing a service to someone that you believe should not be getting it.

Your complaint may be about the conduct of the service provider and/or the conduct of their employees.

A service provider may have acted unreasonably if their decision or conduct:

does not conform to the relevant legislation or guidelines
does not meet acceptable standards
has a detrimental impact on a particular consumer or consumers of that service.

What happens when you complain?

You should contact us and ask to speak to a complaints officer.
If you have not yet done so, the complaints officer may encourage you to talk directly to the service provider about your complaint. We can advise you about how to do this and what to say. The service provider will often work with you to solve the problem without you having to lodge a complaint with us.
If you have already tried to sort your complaint out with the service provider, or if that was unsuccessful, we will assess your complaint and decide how best to handle it.
We may sometimes ask you to give us more information before we decide what action to take.
We will usually contact the service provider, ask for an explanation of their conduct and try to sort out your complaint as quickly as possible.

Our options for dealing with your complaint

1. Refer your complaint to the service provider for local resolution or investigation

We ask the service provider to sort out the problem with you and to report back to us about
the solution and the outcome. You can contact us again if you are not satisfied with what the service provider does as a result of your complaint.

2. Conciliate your complaint

Sometimes we appoint an independent mediator to conciliate a complaint. They bring you and the service provider together to try to resolve the issues. We may consider conciliation if there is a continuing relationship between you and the service provider and if both parties agree to cooperate.

3. Investigate your complaint

If your complaint raises serious concerns about the current care, treatment or safety of a vulnerable consumer, we may carry out an investigation. We usually give priority to investigating complaints involving people who are the most vulnerable and least able to protect their own interests - such as people with a disability, children and young people.

4. Refer your complaint to another body for investigation

If your complaint is beyond our authority, or if it raises an issue of corruption or criminal conduct, we may refer it to another body such as the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) or the Police.

5. Decline the complaint

We can decline a complaint for the reasons set out in section 13 of the Ombudsman Act 1974. For example, we may decline a complaint if:

the subject matter of the complaint has been or could be considered by a court
the complaint is frivolous, vexatious or not made in good faith
the conduct complained of occurred too long ago to justify resolution or investigation.

Whatever our decision, we will provide you with our reasons in writing.