Crisis management & complaints

We regularly support clients through some of the most difficult situations they’ve faced as organisations. We understand the legal, regulatory, operational and reputational challenges and we know how to navigate through them.

We also support our clients to take proactive steps to prevent crises down the line. A well-structured approach to handling complaints can be crucial. Regulators like the Charity Commission and the Fundraising Regulator place strong emphasis on charities having mechanisms for concerns to be raised and dealt with promptly and appropriately.

We can work with you to draft and implement policies and processes that should not only satisfy the regulators, but will also provide a firm foundation to help avoid a crisis developing in the future.

We can support you by:

• Advising on complaints policies and procedures
• Drafting or evaluating your wider framework of policies

• Crisis planning and stakeholder management
• Engaging with the regulator, eg whether and when to make a serious incident report to the Charity Commission
• Providing cross-departmental expertise, from our employment, dispute resolution, data privacy, regulatory and charity law teams
• Advising on internal investigations – assessing if one is needed; how to plan and frame it; appointing an external investigator if necessary
• Governance support and advice
• Support with statutory and regulatory investigations
• Strategising around identifying lessons learned and implementing actions
• Considering questions of confidentiality and transparency.