Complain about a council service

If you feel that a council service hasn’t been properly delivered, you can make an official complaint.

These areas have separate complaints processes to follow:

• Complain about Housing or Housing Repairs Service
• Complain about Adult Social Care services
• Complain about Children's Social Care services
• Complain about a councillor
• Complain about a licence holder
• Reporting planning enforcement issues
• Private tenants' complaints about being harrassed or illegally evicted
• Complain about an education service
• Complain about a taxi or taxi driver

Complaining about another Council service

When complaining about any other Council service, the process involves two stages.

Stage 1: Investigating your complaint

We will acknowledge receipt of your complaint within 5 working days and wherever possible we will seek early resolution with you. When investigating a complaint, we will contact you personally if possible.
 
In our acknowledgement letter we will detail our understanding of your complaint and the outcomes you are seeking. If any aspect of the complaint is unclear, then we will seek clarification.

We will write to you to confirm the outcome of the investigation and explain any actions we will take. We aim to complete this within 10 working days. 

However, if a delay arises with our response, we will contact you to explain the reason for the delay and agree a new response date.

Stage 2: Reviewing our decision

If you are not satisfied with our response, you can ask for a more senior manager to review your complaint.

In this case, please either:

• contact the manager named in our formal response letter within 28 calendar days from the date of your Stage 1 response letter
• contact Customer Services

Please provide details of why you are not satisfied and what further action you want to be taken.

Acknowledging your complaint

We will acknowledge receipt of your complaint within 5 working days. In our acknowledgement letter we will detail our understanding of your complaint and the outcomes you are seeking and if any aspect of the complaint is unclear, then we will seek clarification.

Making our final decision

We will aim to complete this review and write to you with their decision within 20 working days. However, if a delay arises with our response, we will contact you to explain the reason for the delay and agree a  new response date.

The review is the final stage of the Council's complaints procedure.

If you remain dissatisfied

If you are not satisfied with our review response or you feel we have not handled your complaint properly, you can contact the Ombudsman.

The Ombudsman will not normally look into a complaint until the Council has had an opportunity to deal with it. However, you can contact their Advice Team at any time.

Our complaints policy

Our complaints policy, including response timescales, is detailed below.