Make a complaint to the council

In many situations, your first point of contact with us will be with our customer service centre. Our customer service staff try to resolve complaints about our services. If that is not possible, we will put you in touch with the relevant service. If neither service can sort the issue or provide reasonable details of why this cannot be achieved, then the process below will be followed.  

We acknowledge that we may receive a range of complaints in a variety of ways including by phone, in person, in writing, and online. Complaints should preferably be received in writing and whilst we encourage use of our online form, we will accept any written communication.

Stage 1 - Complaint 

If you are not happy with the service you have received from us, you can make a Stage 1 complaint. Our aim is to resolve any complaint we receive at this stage as quickly as possible. 

You can make a complaint using by phone, in person, our online form or in writing. If you need help with submitting your complaint in writing, our customer services advisors can help.  

Make a complaint

What happens after I have made the complaint?

While we hope to resolve any complaint immediately, for Stage 1 complaints we will: 

• acknowledge complaints within five working days 
• fully investigate and respond to complaints within 10 working days 
• where it is not possible to respond within the 10-day period, due to the complexity of a complaint or due to the absence of a key officer or another specific reason, we will contact you to let you know when you can expect a reply
• if this is the case, a further extension of 10 working days will be added to respond to you
• you will always be notified of any changes to the standard response target

If you are not happy with the response to your Stage 1 complaint, you can request for it to be progressed to Stage 2 to be considered as an appeal.