The retirement village manager must present a report at the annual meeting of residents. Without identifying the parties, this report must detail for the past year:
- the number and nature of management complaints and residents’ disputes
- the outcome of each complaint or dispute, including any action taken to resolve them
- any changes, made or proposed, to address issues arising from a complaint or dispute.
Reporting confidentially
The best way to maintain confidentiality in the reporting process is to collate the specific information about individual complaints and disputes into a range of broad categories – for example, collating by:
- number of complaints and disputes received
- timeframes for resolution
- nature of the complaints, such as:
- condition of village grounds
- maintenance issues
- contractual issues
- noise
- quality of service
- disputes between residents
- action taken, for example:
- information provided
- apology
- public meeting
- conciliation/mediation/facilitation session
- resident interviews or meetings – consultation with residents’ committee
- independent/expert advice or report obtained
- corrective action (for example, maintenance work or repairs)
- outcome, for example:
- resolved to satisfaction of both parties (for disputes between residents)
- resolved to the satisfaction of the complainant (for management complaints)
- resident advised to seek external assistance
- referred for external dispute resolution
- as a result of the complaint, a village policy or process was changed
- complaint withdrawn
- unsuitable for dispute resolution
- referred to relevant authority (for example, the police or a local council).