Complaints process

Stage 1

At Stage 1, your complaint will be looked at by an Officer within our Customer Feedback Team and the manager that has responsibility for the service that is being complained about. 

We will attempt to address your complaint as quickly as possible. The Officer will contact you to discuss your concerns in more detail and will consider the information, processes and thinking behind decisions that have been made to help agree a way forward. The Officer will then write to you setting out their findings and any action that they will take to resolve matters.

We will always aim to provide you with a full written response within 10 to 20 working days.
 
We hope that we would be able to satisfactorily resolve your complaint at this stage of the process. However, if at the end of Stage 1 you remain dissatisfied, you can contact the Customer Feedback Team and request that your complaint is escalated to the next stage of the process, Stage 2.

Stage 2

You can ask us to review your complaint at Stage 2 if:

• You are unhappy with your complaint response or the outcome at stage 1
• You are dissatisfied with the way you feel your complaint was handled
• You did not receive a response within the set timescale provided

At Stage 2, we will arrange for a full and considered investigation of the complaint to take place without delay. To do this, an Investigating Officer will talk to you about your complaint so they can get a full understanding of your concerns. They will review how your complaint was dealt with and will establish whether they agree with the findings and the outcome from Stage 1.

The Investigating Officer will write a letter setting out their findings and any action that they will take to resolve your complaint.

We will always aim to provide you with a full written response within 25 working days. We will always ensure that you are kept updated about the timescale that we are working to.

If, after going through Stages 1 and 2, you are still not satisfied with our response, you can take your complaint to the Local Government Ombudsman.