Sanctions

[Del]

We will use this thread to formulate any possible Sanctions that are to be used where members renage on their agreement to the charter or who refuse to abide by the adjudications of the A.C.

Sean

[johnmac11]

Re: Sanctions

Sanctions

As far as I can see the different levels of sanctions we have are censure, suspension or expulsion. The problem being what level do we go to for each case?
If a member is found to be culpable but not criminally liable in a case then the first two sanctions should apply. If they have committed a criminal offence and it comes to the attention of the police, HSE or Trading Standards then in most cases expulsion must apply

Censure Would censure be used at all?

It would be used for any offence that has been brought to our attention that we deem has seriously affected their relationship with a customer i.e. shoddy workmanship, abusive attitude, not turning up when expected, not advising of spares delays and blatant overcharging etc. I assume in most cases these would be rectified by the offending member at the earliest opportunity. After all who would risk being suspended or losing their place in repairs@ for a minor problem?

Suspension What would an offending member be suspended for?

Persistent offences of the same nature that seriously affect customer care and relations that are not going to be subject to criminal investigation i.e. all of the above and any more that we can think of. Should we also suspend members that fail to comply with the member’s charter ?

Expulsion The final sanction.

We need to be very sure of ourselves before using this one and I assume it would need to be a unanimous vote before we go ahead with an expulsion. If there is a criminal conviction brought against a member for defrauding a customer is this automatic expulsion? If there is a HSE or trading standards case do we take each case individually?

We also have to consider the implications of publishing our results. In the case of expulsion I take it we always publish but as far as censure and suspension go I think we shouldn’t. We have got to think of the embarrassment factor here and if we do publish details of these cases it would probably drive the member away from the site. Maybe we could publish these with no names mentioned?

Your thoughts please?

John

[Penguin45]

Re: Sanctions

I have no problem with that in principal. I still think that some sort of acknowledgement that action has been taken needs to be made, and if I understand Ken’s reply in the Defining thread correctly he would like it fully documented and reported. I don’t agree with that and think a report should be available should someone present a reasonable case for viewing it.

I have some reservations with the Expulsion bit – a case going to court will take time to be dealt with and we could be seen to be pre-judging the issue by booting someone out. What to do with them in the meantime…………?

Chris.

[johnmac11]

Re: Sanctions

The way I see it is if a member is censured or suspended we document what the offences are and then we can, in an open trade forum present the facts with names deleted. If Mr Engineer looks on the forums and finds the whole story documented with names etc. he will probably never use the site again. I also think that censure or suspension will rarely be used as it is in the members interest to sort the problem as soon as possible.

Penguin45 wrote:I have some reservations with the Expulsion bit – a case going to court will take time to be dealt with and we could be seen to be pre-judging the issue by booting someone out. Chris.

What I said was ” if a criminal conviction” was brought against a member. We still have to work on the assumption of innocent till proven guilty. If we ever were to remove somone from repairs@ before a case was heard we could have some serious problems i.e. we might even be called as witnesses for the prosecution.

John

[Del]

Re: Sanctions

I can see that there is very little to divide us on most points as they will be based on common sense. For now we should concentrate on keeping it simple and lay out the bare bones of our policy.
Later on we will have to flesh these topics out by playing out some “WHAT IF ” scenarios.

The reason I say this is that I think we need to take things back one step and actually read the UKW members charter as this will form the basis of a contract between the UKW member and customer. This will be the yardstick that customers will beat us over the head with if they think we are in breach of in any part, or any reasonable interpretation of it. As we all know lads, interpretation is what it’s all about.
There should be no room for error or misrepresentation of it and it needs to be bomb proof.

I feel that at the moment there are one or two rules in it that that may cause a problem later on. Not in what is meant but in how it reads.

Therefore I would ask that you download it off the site and post your views
as the charter is the document that everything else hangs upon. This should be as important to us as the A.C. of UKW as the magna carter or declaration of independence is to others.

I will reserve my own points for now as I do not wish to influence your own appraisals.

Sean

[kwatt]

Sorry Chris I obviously wasn’t clear.

There seems to me no requirement to publish unless there is a total breakdown, as John says if someone blatently breaks or flaunts the law then I think we should.

But and, this is a big but, how do we warn people not to use certain repairers should they prove to be unreliable? Is it not only fair to the public that they should be informed?

K.

[Del]

kwatt wrote:Sorry Chris I obviously wasn’t clear.

There seems to me no requirement to publish unless there is a total breakdown, as John says if someone blatently breaks or flaunts the law then I think we should.

But and, this is a big but, how do we warn people not to use certain repairers should they prove to be unreliable? Is it not only fair to the public that they should be informed?

K.

That should be quite simple ken if they dont appear in our data base we do not recommend them, it’s that simple.

In the fullness of time UKW membership will be viewed as a quality mark.

That will encourage those who are dithering about to get on board and sign up.

Sean

[kwatt]

Good point Del.

K.

[johnmac11]

Re: Sanctions

Now that the charter looks as good as finished it must be time to move on to sanctions. When we go to Sibson I imagine the first question on everyone’s mind after they hear the charter is “What if a member does not comply?”

I have sketched out my thoughts above so can we have some thought on any amendments that need done?

John

[Del]

Re: Sanctions

The more I think about it the more i’m convinced that all we need to say is that there are three levels of sanction.
Censure, suspension, expulsion.

Each individual case would be judged on its own merits as every one would be different.

The only thing that we should stress is that each case will be fully investigated as far as is possible and that any reasonable doubt would be granted to our member.

Sean

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