Before we begin to discuss the issue of complaints and your governing body, it is important to re-visit the basic definition of a complaint because it can be difficult to establish when constructive feedback becomes a complaint.

If you are in doubt as to whether a complaint is being made, you should attempt to clarify the situation by asking yourself: “Does this feedback highlight a gap or deficiency in our service, operations and or procedures?” If the answer is “Yes” you should log the feedback as a complaint, even though on its face, it may be considered more generally as constructive feedback. For example, if a parent complains that their child did not get an “A” on a homework task, this is not in itself a complaint as the particular incident does not suggest that the school could improve its service delivery or operations. On the other hand, if the matter raised relates to alleged bias in assessment criteria, this would be classified as a complaint as the allegation of bias would need to be investigated, and, if substantiated, would reflect an area where the school could improve its operations.

School Governance has published no fewer than 15 articles regarding schools and complaints with one of the first back in 2013. But why do we regularly publish articles regarding schools and complaints? Because complaints are a well-known risk and they are key risk indicators for all schools. This was discussed in the briefing paper “12 Key Risks for School Boards to Consider in 2019” and again in the “Top Operational and Strategic Risks for Schools in 2020 Pillar Page”.

Ultimately, effective complaints handling is all about taking control of the management of your school’s reputation. The risk that schools face is:

“The School fails to implement and effectively manage a complaints handling program for key stakeholders including parents and students (including failure to maintain a register of complaints and an internal process for reporting complaints).”

In a previous article we noted that “school governing bodies need to hear about both the complaints and the positive feedback”. However, what do you do if someone raises a complaint regarding one of your governors or perhaps about your governing body? Does your constitution or your complaints policy provide the school with valid controls to deal with this uncommon but serious risk?

Is Your Complaints Handling Process Sufficient for Complaints Relating to your Governing Body?

The answer to this question depends on whether or not there is a rule within the school’s constitution that covers not only complaints about the rules but also complaints about the members, or a role added to the duties of the chair of the governing body to deal with complaints associated with the governing body or its members.

Some schools have separate governance policies that relate to complaints raised about the governing body.

In addition, many jurisdictions require complaints processes regarding governing body rules to be noted within each organisation’s constitution. For example, in this Western Australian Department of Commerce document:

“

• All incorporated associations are required to include a dispute resolution process in the rules which may be required to resolve more complex or serious matters.
• The aim of a dispute resolution process is to reduce disharmony in an association and to provide a fair, consistent and timely approach to dealing with complaints and disputes.

Managing internal grievances and disputes as well as complaints from the public is an important task of the management committee. Most concerns are resolved by simply contacting the appropriate person in the association or discussing the issue with other members. Failure by an association to allow its members to be heard and ensure their concerns are understood and given due consideration can result in relatively minor issues escalating.”

No matter how it is presented, schools need a public facing policy or policies and an internal complaints handling program and to be able to easily identify the issue or the person about who the complainant has raised a complaint. For example, if a complaint is being raised about a principal, it is usually made to, or through, the chair of the governing body. If a complaint is raised regarding a governing body member, then the complainant could also go to the chair. However it is done, the complaint must not be managed by any employee of the school and this includes the principal. The school’s complaints handling program needs to make all of these ‘pathways’ clear.

Vigorous and open discussion at governing body meetings where different opinions are expressed, valued and encouraged in a well-managed and transparent process leads to trust and positive governing body relationships. We raised this in a previous article regarding governing body evaluation processes: Some recommended questions included:

• Is dissent welcomed and is active and respectful disagreement regarded as healthy and normal?
• Does the chair encourage robust and respectful discussion and disagreement?
• Is the governing body given a variety of viewpoints or only given information that focuses on one side of complex strategic issues and decisions?
• Are some governing members regarded as ‘difficult’ because they ask too many questions?
• Are there more questions that governing body members would have liked to ask but felt constrained by governing body norms regarding the questioning of decisions?

Having been on a number of governing bodies and also having reported to several as well, I would argue that, if your governing body does not allow for open and honest discourse, if there are fractious governing body members or if the governing body is fractious itself, and if there is no open trust between the members of your governing body, it stands to reason that any form of constructive feedback or criticism, if not given the opportunity to be heard and debated, may well be raised as a formal complaint.

Complaints Raised Against the Governing Body Chair

Complaints raised about the chair of your governing body may be better managed if there is a rule within the school’s constitution or perhaps in your overarching complaints policy allowing for this.

Who is the appropriate person to handle a complaint made about the governing body chair? Many schools have an overarching body (often a church) where the ‘visitor’ on the board is usually a bishop or very senior member of the relevant church. That person could be tasked with hearing complaints about a governing body chair. Some churches, such as the Uniting Church, have an “Integrity Panel” or similar and complaints regarding governing body chairs would be raised with that panel.

Once again, as stated above, the person charged with handling complaints in relation to the governing body chair must not be an employee of the school. The person should also not be a member of the school’s governing body unless the person sits on an external complaints panel, such as the one mentioned above. Systemic schools would have a procedure within their system where the CEO of the system (or delegate) would be the person who would receive a complaint about the chair of a governing body of a school within the system.

What are Your Strategic Risks in Relation to Governing Body Members?

There are a number of general strategic risks in the area of complaints as we noted in our 2019 article.

However, has your school noted the strategic risks of having a complaint about a governing body member (or even your whole governing body)? Some of these risks could include:

• Governing body performance: The governing body fails to establish and effectively implement systems and procedures to regularly and effectively monitor and review its own performance and the performance of individual members.
• Reputation: The reputation and brand of the school are significantly damaged as a result of adverse incident and/or systemic governance, risk or compliance failures over time.  

Summary

There can be little argument that the proactive management of complaints in schools has considerable benefits. Common sense dictates this. There are not too many schools however that fail to control the agenda when dealing with problems and issues raised by members of their communities.

In addition, and even though this may be seemingly rare, schools also need to ensure that their complaints processes capture complaints that may be raised against the governing body or members of the governing body including the chair. After all, your governing body members are members of your school community too.

Learn More about Complaints as one of the "Forgotten" School Risks

Earlier today, CompliSpace held a free webinar called, "The Forgotten School Risks (that can come back to bite you)!"  There will be a write-up about that webinar, including a way to access the recording, in next week's School Governance.

Click here to learn more about the free School Risk Webinar series.