This guide is tells you about making a complaint to the LTA. The complaints covered in this guide are complaints about someone’s conduct or behaviour.
Customer Service Problems and Queries
If your problem or query is not about someone’s conduct, but is about one of the LTA’s services, you should contact our customer service team. You can speak to the team on 0208 487 7000 about:
- British Tennis Membership
- Ratings and Rankings
- Tournament Entry
- Facilities
- Clubs
- Competitions
- Any other areas of British Tennis
Local solutions
The best way to resolve problems is usually at local level, by talking to the people involved. Depending on the situation, you could try contacting a coach, referee, team captain, club child protection officer, local authority, or another person at the relevant organisation or event.
You should normally try this before contacting the LTA.
If your complaint is about the behaviour of a player, it is essential that you inform the referee as soon as possible. The LTA will not normally consider direct complaints unless they have been escalated via the relevant referee.
When to contact the LTA
There are times when you might want to make a complaint to the LTA about someone’s conduct. Here are some ideas about when this might be necessary:
- Your complaint is very serious
- You require urgent advice or support (eg. to protect someone’s safety or welfare)
- You are worried about the confidentiality or the impact of a local complaint
- You made a local complaint but the matter was not resolved
- Your complaint is about an LTA employee
- Your complaint is about someone who is licensed, registered or accredited by the LTA (eg an LTA Licensed coach; an LTA accredited Official).
How to contact the LTA
Complaints about personal conduct should be sent to the LTA’s Child Protection and Disciplinary team at childprotection@LTA.org.uk, or by addressing a letter to ‘Child Protection/Disciplinary’ at the LTA. The team can also offer general advice about conduct issues and the LTA’s approach to complaints.
If you need advice or would like to discuss your complaint or query, you can speak to the team by calling 0208 487 7008/7116 during office hours.
What will the LTA do with my complaint?
We aim to give an initial response to complaints within five working days. Urgent matters will receive a quicker response.
We will make sure that the correct LTA department is dealing with your complaint, and will let you know who is handling the matter.
In many cases we will contact you to discuss your complaint in more detail. This helps us to find out what action might be most appropriate.
Not all complaints will lead to formal action. Sometimes we can help to resolve problems informally through advice or support. In other cases we may need to make more detailed enquiries before deciding on the best way to handle an issue.
We can’t resolve every problem or complaint in British tennis. If we are unable to address your complaint, we will explain why, and will try to provide information or resources that will help you to resolve the issues in another way.
To find out more about our principles for handling complaints, please go to our guide to Complaints Handling
What information will I need to provide?
Provide as much information as you can. If you are able to provide the information in writing or by email, this will make it easier for us to handle the complaint. It can be difficult for us to deal with an issue if we do not have very much information.
Remember that we might not be familiar with your local area. Try to include information such as names, contact details and job titles. The more information you are able to provide with your initial complaint, the easier it will be for us to investigate. If you are unsure of what to include with a complaint, call us for advice on 0208 487 7008/7116 during office hours.
Useful contacts and organisations
You can find a range of resources as well as searching for contact details of LTA county offices, tennis clubs and Licensed coaches at the LTA website: www.LTA.org.uk.
To find out more about the LTA’s handling of complaints, visit the Complaints Handling guide.
If you believe that you have been the victim of racial prejudice or discrimination, you can contact the LTA’s Equality and Diversity manager at equality@LTA.org.uk.
If you need urgent advice because you think that someone’s conduct might pose a risk to the safety or welfare of a child, you can contact the Child Protection duty telephone on 07971 141 024.
Your local social services and Police teams can offer advice and help if someone is at risk.
You can also call the NSPCC’s advice line on 0800 500 5000. Children can call Childline on 0800 1111. Dial 999 in an emergency.
If you are not sure who to speak to, or if you have a general query about your British Tennis Membership, ratings and rankings, or Online Tournament Entry, please contact the LTA service team:
T: 0208 487 7000
E: info@LTA.org.uk
Lawn Tennis Association
National Tennis Centre
100 Priory Lane
London SW15 5JQ