Purpose

The purpose of this policy is to assist the Veterinary Services Regulatory Board of South Australia (VSRBSA) to manage unreasonable complainant conduct.

The aim of this policy is to;

• ensure we work and perform our functions in a way that appropriately manages the limited resources, both human and financial.
• maintain the health, safety, and security of our staff; and
• provide transparency in decision making and the need to provide a fair and objective procedure for the review of all decisions and services provided.

Scope

This Policy covers Unreasonable Complaint Conduct to the VSRBSA and via all communication channels, including but not limited to face to face, telephone, mail, email, letters to the media, and social media.

This policy applies to unreasonable complaints made to the VSRBSA except where other mechanisms for appeal or resolution apply, including but not limited to the following issues:

• complaints related to competitive neutrality.
• allegations of a breach of conflict-of-interest obligations by a board member or employee.
• internal staff complaints – to be referred to various human resources policies; and/or
• any matters before a Court, Tribunal, the South Australian Police, a Minister of the Crown, a South Australian or Federal Government Department, the Office for Public Integrity, or the South Australian Ombudsman.

Objective

The objective of this policy is to establish a policy position for handling unreasonable complainant conduct.

We aim to:

• ensure that a complainant understands what the VSRBSA is able or unable to do in relation to their requests.
• prevent the VSRBSA’s limited resources being utilised towards malicious, trivial, frivolous, unreasonable, persistent, or vexatious requests or complaints or otherwise not made in good faith.
• outline the considerations to be taken into account in determining whether a request or complaint is frivolous, trivial, vexatious or not made in good faith; and
• define what constitutes unreasonable complainant conduct, to outline the options available to VSRBSA to manage unreasonable complainant conduct and the circumstances in which it is appropriate to implement these options.

Policy

Complaints or Requests for Service that are trivial, frivolous or vexatious or otherwise not made in good faith

If the Board determines that a request is trivial, frivolous, vexatious, or otherwise not made in good faith this is grounds to dismiss the request and not take any further action in relation to it, pursuant to section 70 of the Veterinary Services Act 2023.

A determination that a request is trivial, frivolous, vexatious, or otherwise not made in good faith must consider:

• any similar requests previously made by the person or their immediate family (i.e., about the same service).
• the response and outcome to previous requests made by the person (if any).
• whether the service is capable of being provided by or required to be provided by the VSRBSA.
• the outcomes sought by the person; and
• the resources required to provide the service (to ensure that it is not an unreasonable diversion of resources).

A decision to take no further action in respect of a request that is trivial, frivolous, or vexatious, or otherwise not made in good faith and/or unreasonable will be communicated in writing to the person making the request.

Alternatively, if the complaint is considered to sit outside of the VSRBSA’s statutory functions which include establishing administrative processes for handling complaints received against veterinarians or about veterinary premises, the Chair of the Board may determine to forward any concerns that are raised in relation to the operational matters of the VSRBSA to the responsible Minister under the Veterinary Services Act 2023. This determination will be madeif it is deemed inappropriate to respond to queries relating to operational matters of the VSRBSA by the Board and will be reported at the following VSRBSA meeting.

Unreasonable Complainant Conduct

Complainants may be aggressive and verbally abusive towards our staff, threaten harm and violence, bombard our offices with unnecessary and excessive phone calls and emails, make inappropriate demands and refuse to accept our decisions and recommendations in relation to their complaints. When complainants behave in these ways, we consider their conduct to be ‘unreasonable’.

Unreasonable complainant conduct is any behaviour by a current or former complainant which, because of its nature or frequency, raises substantial Work Health and Safety, resource or equity issues for our organisation, our staff, other customers, or the complainant themselves.

Unreasonable complainant conduct can be divided into five categories of conduct:

• Unreasonable persistence
• Unreasonable demands
• Unreasonable lack of cooperation
• Unreasonable arguments
• Unreasonable behaviours

Responsibilities

The Executive Officer has the responsibility and authority for completely terminating a complainant’s access to the VSRBSA services as outlined in this policy.

The Executive Officer is responsible for managing cases of unreasonable complainant conduct.

The VSRBSA and the Executive Officer are responsible for supporting staff in applying the strategies in this policy and the associated Procedures.

The Executive Officer is also responsible for ensuring staff members are trained in dealing with Unreasonable Complainant Conduct and ensure staff are provided with proper support and assistance if required.

Terms and Definitions

Related Legislation and Documents

Feedback

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