NATURE OF THIS STUDY

9.1 This Report describes the results of surveys carried out with the following groups of people:

• People making initial enquiries of the ADB by telephone during a four-week period in September-October 1995.
• People who had made formal complaints to the ADB which were finalised in the year to 30 June 1995.
• Complainants with whom the ADB had had no further contact after initially responding to a written complaint and whose files were closed in the year to 30 June 1995.
• Respondents to cases handled by the ADB which were finalised in the year to 30 June 1995.
• Complainants in cases which had gone to the EOT and were finalised in the year to 30 June 1995.
• Respondents in cases which had gone to the EOT and were finalised in the year to 30 June 1995.

The first survey was carried out by telephone, the remaining five by mail.

PEOPLE MAKING TELEPHONE ENQUIRIES

9.2 The survey of those contacting the ADB's Enquiries Officers showed that most callers were private individuals, contacting the Board on their own behalf as potential Complainants. Those who telephoned the ADB with these or other enquiries were generally well satisfied with the information which they received, and with the courtesy and expertise of the Enquiries Officers. The only complaint made by significant numbers of callers related to experiencing delays in getting through to the Enquiries Officer, and possibly encountering a recorded message.

9.3 The callers most commonly knew of the ADB through the media or their own general knowledge. One-third had been referred to the Board by another agency, such as a government department. Relatively few callers said that they had been hesitant to contact the ADB. Reasons given by those who were hesitant included being unsure whether or not they had grounds for complaint or whether the Board could help, and being nervous that other people might find out about, or object to, their contacting the ADB.

9.4 A relatively high percentage of the "potential Complainants" indicated that they intended to pursue the matter they had called about, either through the ADB or by some other means. Those who did not plan to pursue the matter generally said that this was because the Anti-Discrimination Act did not cover their situation. Some suggested that the coverage of the Act needed to be extended.

POSTAL SURVEYS

Response rates

9.5 The postal surveys of Complainants and Respondents achieved relatively high response rates in the 45% - 60% range. The exception was a response rate of some 30% in the "no further contact" group; given that these were people with whom the ADB had had minimal contact, this lower response rate was to be expected.

Outcomes and satisfaction levels

9.6 As the parties perceived it, many of these discrimination complaints were not clearly resolved one way or another. Both the ADB Complainants and the ADB Respondents reported more wins than losses; among the EOT parties, however, there was agreement that more cases had been won by Complainants than by Respondents.

9.7 Since taking complaints to the ADB or EOT is essentially an adversarial process, it is predictable that significant numbers of people will regard the process and outcomes as unsatisfactory or unjust. In relation to the fairness of the ADB's handling of the matter:

• just over half of the ADB Complainants agreed that the Board's handling of the matter was fair;
• 70% of the ADB Respondents agreed that the Board's handling of the matter was fair;
• 70% of the EOT Complainants thought that the ADB had been fair; and
• 50% of the EOT Respondents thought the ADB had been fair.

9.8 As to satisfaction with the final outcome:

• some 40% of the ADB Complainants were satisfied;
• two-thirds of the ADB Respondents were satisfied;
• some 60% of the EOT Complainants were satisfied; and
• 40% of those EOT Respondents who expressed a view on the final outcome were satisfied.

9.9 Levels of satisfaction tended to reflect the individual's assessment of which party, if any, had succeeded. Around two in three of the Complainants surveyed said that they would recommend the ADB to a friend or relative who might in future have a discrimination problem.

9.10 Among the ADB Respondents it was generally representatives of government organisations who were most satisfied or most positive in their comments about the ADB, and individual Respondents who were least satisfied or positive. Respondents representing private companies tended to occupy an intermediate position.

9.11 Among Complainants who had at some stage withdrawn or discontinued their complaint to the ADB, only about one in five said that this was because the problem had been solved or they had achieved their objectives. Among the 19 "no further contact" Complainants who responded to the survey, less than half said that the reason they had not pursued the matter was that the problem had disappeared or been solved.

The ADB's handling of complaints

9.12 The great majority of parties said that staff at the ADB had been generally courteous and helpful. Around two-thirds of Complainants agreed that ADB staff had clearly understood their complaint. Around 60% of both Complainants and Respondents agreed that the ADB had kept them well informed on how the matter was progressing.

9.13 Some parties had difficulty in understanding the processes for dealing with complaints. Minorities of both the ADB Complainants (some 25%) and Respondents (some 20%) said that they had found the ADB's procedures quite difficult to follow. Thirty-eight per cent of the Complainants from non-English speaking backgrounds reported some difficulty in this regard. Among those Complainants who had been told by the ADB that it could not take their complaint any further, a third had not clearly understood why this was so. It appears that the ADB needs to continue to put effort into making its procedures as clear and simple as possible and finding the clearest possible ways of explaining them to its clients.

9.14 Many of those surveyed made some comment about the nature and level of the ADB's involvement in dealing with the complaint. On the one hand there were Complainants who believed that the Board should have given them more active support and assistance, rather than leaving up to them the sometimes difficult task of "making out" the complaint. On the other hand there were numbers of Respondents who perceived the Board as too closely identified with the Complainant and who believed that this prejudiced its dealing with the Respondent or its capacity to "determine" the complaint in a fair and unbiased fashion.

Conciliation conferences

9.15 Commentary on ADB conciliation conferences was generally positive, with substantial majorities of people saying that the purpose of the conference had been explained clearly, that they had had a reasonable chance to say what they wanted to say and that they had understood what was going on in the conference. A minority (24% of the ADB Complainants and one third of the ADB Respondents) said that they had felt that the conciliator put pressure on them to agree to a settlement.

9.16 Comparing the answers of those ADB Complainants and those ADB Respondents who had attended a conciliation conference at the Board:

• The views of Complainants who had attended a conciliation conference were generally more positive than the views of those Complainants who had not done so.
• The views of Respondents who had attended a conciliation conference were in a number of respects less positive than those of other Respondents.
• Among the parties who had attended a conciliation conference, more Complainants (30%) than Respondents (15%) saw themselves as the successful party, and more Complainants (62%) than Respondents (51%) expressed satisfaction with the final outcome of the complaint.

9.17 In summary, the Respondent was in general more likely to have a positive view of ADB processes and outcomes in those cases which did not get to the stage of a conciliation conference; the Complainant was more likely to have been satisfied in cases which did involve a conciliation conference.

Parties with experience of the EOT

9.18 Nearly two-thirds of Complainants who had gone to the EOT said that this had been worthwhile, and expressed satisfaction with the final outcome. A small number said that the EOT's procedures should be simplified or that it should offer more assistance to unrepresented parties.

9.19 As a group, the Respondents who had gone to the EOT expressed somewhat negative views of the Tribunal and its processes. Even those Respondents who had been successful at the Tribunal were sometimes resentful of the trouble and expense which they had incurred as a result of what they saw as insubstantial or false complaints which should "never have been allowed" to proceed.

Changes made by the Respondents

9.20 Nearly half of the ADB Respondents reported that they or their organisations had made changes of some kind as a result of this or other complaints taken to the Board. Most of the reported changes related to such things as grievance procedures, documentation or staff training.

General opinions

9.21 The general views that people expressed about the ADB and the EOT were very diverse, ranging from the extremely positive to the extremely negative. To a significant extent the parties' assessment of the ADB and the EOT appeared to be influenced by their view of whether they themselves had or had not been successful.

9.22 Overall the Respondents were more likely than the Complainants to perceive the ADB and/or the EOT as biased against them. As indicated above, there were fairly frequent comments to the effect that the Complainant's claims were not critically examined or investigated but accepted largely at face value. However, as already noted, some 70% of the ADB Respondents believed that the ADB had handled the complaint fairly.

9.23 A number of Respondents stated that, in the long run, it was often cheaper to settle a claim than to dispute it, whatever the merits of the case.

9.24 A substantial number of both Complainants and Respondents complained of delays at the ADB and the EOT. It was suggested that the ADB, in particular, was under-staffed or under-resourced. A small number of people suggested ways in which the ADB could be made more accessible, for example through extended business hours or through opening a branch office in western Sydney.