The complaints committee secretary: what the role involves and who should do it
In practice, the secretariat determines how smoothly a committee runs. It is where complaints come in, where case files are kept and where deadlines are monitored. What the secretariat does, from the first complaint to the advice, and three ways to organise it.
The work between hearings
A complaints committee may meet only a few times a year, but a case runs for weeks or months. Throughout that period someone receives the complaint and builds the case file, exchanges documents between the parties, schedules the hearing and takes the minutes, checks that deadlines are met and archives the case file afterwards. In some committees that person also drafts the advice. In others the chair or a member does so, and the secretariat supplies the facts and documents. Both approaches are common. Agree the division of work explicitly rather than letting it evolve by default. There are three ways to organise the secretariat, set out side by side below.
The models combine well: many committees move from an in-house secretary to in-house plus platform, or from external to external plus platform with their own case records.
The position: part of the committee, not the organisation
Whoever pays the secretary's salary, the work is done on the committee's behalf. That is not a formality, because the secretary sees every case file, every statement and every draft before the parties do. So lay down three things in the regulations: that the secretary acts on the chair's instructions, that nothing is shared with the organisation beyond what the regulations allow, and that the case files are kept in an environment that only the committee and the secretary can access. The third is the hardest in practice, because a line manager with access to the secretary's mailbox or network drive also has access to the case files. The same applies to the independence of the members: put it in the regulations and in the appointment decisions, so that nobody has to trust that it will work out on its own.
The choice in context
The question of the secretariat rarely stands alone. It is linked to the choice between an internal or external committee, to recruiting the chair and members and to the overall cost of running a committee. The choice carries more weight in sectors with short statutory deadlines: Dutch public bodies have six or ten weeks under the General Administrative Law Act (Awb), and in healthcare some stages have deadlines of two to four weeks. If you want to meet those deadlines consistently, you cannot depend on the availability of one or two people. That can be solved without extra staff: if every case sits in a case overview that the chair and members can also see, and everyone working on the case receives an alert as a deadline approaches, a one-person secretariat has back-up in practice. The full playbook for setting up a committee is in our complaints committee guide, and the secretary's work step by step in our guide for the secretary.
Frequently asked questions
The secretariat handles everything around the case: receiving the complaint and building the case file, preparing the admissibility decision, exchanging documents between the parties so that both sides have the same information, scheduling the hearing, writing the report, tracking deadlines and recording the data from which the annual report is compiled. Whether the secretariat also drafts the advice differs per committee: in some the secretary does it, in others the chair or a member. The substance always belongs to the committee.
It is not required, but it helps a great deal: the admissibility check, the reasoning in the draft advice and making sure both sides are properly heard are all legal work. With a secretary who is not a lawyer, the legal check should be secured elsewhere, for example through a chair who is a lawyer or a legal back-up. More important than the title is the combination of precision, writing skill and a feel for parties under pressure.
Functionally, always to the committee: the secretary acts on the chair's instructions and shares nothing with the organisation unless the regulations provide for it. In employment terms the secretary may be employed by the organisation, provided the separation is laid down and the working environment enforces it: the secretary's line manager should have no access to committee case files. This dual position belongs explicitly in the regulations.
Most providers charge a fixed annual fee plus an amount per case or per hearing. The total rises with the number of cases and with what is included: draft advice, attendance at hearings and the annual report are what separate one quote from another. Compare the total price per case, not the annual fee.
In many small committees all the knowledge sits with one person, often partly in a personal mailbox. If that person is away through illness, holiday or departure, case handling stops while the statutory deadlines keep running. Training a second person is one solution, but rarely the cheapest. A more practical approach is to keep the case files, deadlines and templates in a shared environment, so that a colleague or an external secretary can take over without first having to work out where things stand.
Mainly the administration: receiving complaints and sending acknowledgements, building the case file, sharing documents with both parties, scheduling the hearing, drawing up minutes and advice from templates, archiving the case file and collecting the data for the annual report. Approaching deadlines automatically trigger an alert for everyone working on the case, so nobody has to remember them. For the chair and members it goes beyond administration: in the same case file they see how the committee has advised on similar complaints, which legislation and rulings are relevant and which points the deliberations need to cover. What stays with the committee: the admissibility decision, hearing the parties and the advice itself.
In Adminio the complaint goes straight into the case file, acknowledgements go out automatically and everyone working on the case receives an alert as a deadline approaches. The chair and members work in the same case file, with the committee's earlier advice, the relevant legislation and similar rulings to hand, along with their notes from the hearing when they write up the advice. Fees and expense claims are tracked in the same environment. That leaves the secretary time for the substance, and the work carries on when they are away.
This article is general information, not legal advice. Costs and arrangements vary by sector and provider. Last updated: .