The majority of High Court Enforcement Officers belong to a company providing enforcement services and details of the business address for all High Court Enforcement Officers are kept with the Association Secretary.

Only if the case involves one of the small numbers of individuals who are self employed as High Court Enforcement Officers would you need to complain directly to the Association as a first step in making your complaint. Again full details of the High Court Enforcement Officers who are not employed or members of a trading organisation are kept by the Association Secretary.

Be prepared to make your complaint to the High Court Enforcement Officer in writing. If this causes you difficulty or concern we would encourage you to seek independent advice on the best way to put your complaint forward.

The High Court Enforcement Officer will then follow his or her own procedure in handling the complaint.

As and when the internal complaints procedure of the relevant High Court Enforcement Officer has been exhausted and if you are still not satisfied with the result, you can then make your complaint to the Association. At this stage we ask you to read and follow the steps below. Again if you have any difficulty in following these steps we would ask that you seek independent advice from a service provider such as the Citizens Advice Bureau or Community Legal Services Board

Your complaint to the Association should be in writing and addressed to the Association Secretary whose address is as follows:

The Association Secretary
High Court Enforcement Officers Association
P O Box 180
Winsford
Cheshire
CW7 2WP

You can also email your address to the Association using the following email address:

complaints@hceoa.org.uk

The Association Secretary will acknowledge your written complaint and pass it to the Association’s appointed Complaints Officer to deal with. The Association’s Complaints Officer is appointed by the Board of Directors of the Association and currently that post is held by:

Michael Anderson

If your complaint concerns the named Complaints Officer or a member of his trading organisation then a suitably qualified and independent deputy from the Association’s Board of Directors will be appointed to handle the complaint instead of the Complaints Officer.

The Complaints Officer will seek to collate all the available information about the complaint, and decide whether there are grounds for the complaint, or whether your complaint is:

If the Complaints Officer rejects your complaint under one of the headings above and you disagree with that decision, your complaint can be referred by you to the Appeals Board of the Association which will comprise a legally qualified independent advisor and two members of the Board of Directors of the Association (but not the Complaints Officer or anyone else involved in looking at the complaint in the first instance).

If the Complaints Officer decides that the complaint is to be investigated, the Complaints Officer will forward the case to the Complaints Board for consideration. The Association Secretary acts as clerk to both the Complaints Board and the Appeals Board.

The Complaints Board will consider the complaint and give a decision. It may make a decision in line with the following:

The Complaints Officer will advise all parties of the outcome or ruling of the Complaints Board within 21 days. Any involved party has 14 days from the date of the Complaints Officer’s letter informing them of the Complaints Board’s decision in which to notify the Complaints Officer in writing if they wish to appeal the decision to the Appeals Board

If as a result of this decision a complainant wishes to appeal any decision made by the Complaints Board then the Complaints Board will fix a date for the hearing of any appeal

Ultimately the Appeals Board may at the hearing of the appeal make any one of the following decisions:

Only after the complaints procedure has been fully exhausted within the Association’s procedure will any complaint be directed to the Lord Chancellor’s “delegated person” for High Court Enforcement being the Senior Master of the Queen's Bench Division.

At this stage of the Complaints Procedure any such complaints must be made in writing and should be sent to:

At the current time the final part of the Complaints Process is being reviewed by the Senior Master of the Queen’s Bench Division and the Ministry of Justice and once finalized this part of the HCEOA Complaints Procedure will be published at the start of 2009.

The named official will liaise with the delegated person regarding the conduct of any investigation into such complaints.

Please note that the above complaints structure is available in circumstances when the complaint may need to be taken up with the “delegated person” if it involves a decision which relates to the conduct of the High Court Enforcement Officer concerned based on grounds set out in the High Court Enforcement Officers Regulations 2004, paragraph 12. Under this Regulation the Lord Chancellor may at any time (through his delegated person) terminate the authorisation of an individual to act as an enforcement officer or terminate the assignment of an enforcement officer for any one of the postcodes within England and Wales. Based on grounds that: