Understanding dispute resolution
This section will help you gather vital information about the underlying issues driving complaints and disputes, and the circumstances under which they arise and are resolved.
On this page
How this section will help
The information you gather using this section will help you/your agency:
- determine what might be involved in addressing complaints and disputes in your sector or industry
- identify the appropriate approach for addressing complains and disputes and preventing issues from arising
- minimise how many complaints escalate to disputes
- resolve those disputes as early as possible.
In this section
Understanding how disputes arise
This page explains how all disputes follow a life cycle or pathway and provides a series of questions to help you analyse the types of issues.
Understanding the parties to disputes
This page helps you analyse the parties to a dispute, their interests, the outcomes they seek, the relationship between them including if there is an imbalance of power.
Understanding existing dispute resolution arrangements
Before designing a new dispute resolution scheme, it is essential to consider what arrangements may already be in place for resolving disputes.
Understanding the wider context for disputes
The context in which disputes arise varies greatly and numerous factors can influence them including policies, legislation and contractual arrangements.
How we can help
We can help you:
- plan your approach for gathering the relevant information and identifying possible information sources, or develop a new dispute resolution scheme
- identify any gaps or areas that require further investigation to get a full picture of the context for the disputes
- make sense of what you have found out including using the information gathered to assess whether the current arrangements are fit for purpose and consistent with best practice (see Assessing your current scheme) or will be the basis for decisions on improvements to an existing scheme or key elements of a new scheme (see Developing a new scheme).