Comments, compliments and complaints
We welcome feedback; comments, compliments and complaints from customers about the services we provide. The views of our customers are important and help us to consider where changes to services may be appropriate.
How to make a comment, compliment or complaint
Comment
You may wish to express observations about the services we provide and have suggestions or ideas about how we could improve things for our customers. We will aim to reply within 5 working days, where possible.
Compliment
You may wish to tell us about a service that has been good or a member of staff who has been helpful. We will thank you for your feedback and share your praise with those involved.
Complaint
You may wish to tell us if the quality or standard of service you have received, as an individual, has fallen short. Common examples of complaints are delay; poor record keeping; failure to act; failure to follow procedure or the law; poor communication; behaviour of our staff (also called officers); or giving out misleading information.
Please note our complaint procedure does not cover:
- disagreements with policies or practices; feedback of this type can be shared with your local councillor
- issues which affect most people in the area
- matters for which there is a right of appeal
- matters relating to public liability and claims
- requests for services; information or making reports:
- abuse and neglect - safeguarding adults and child protection
- abandoned vehicles
- anti-social behaviour
- bus stop/shelter damage
- benefit housing/Council Tax
- commercial pollution
- council house repairs
- domestic pollution
- empty homes
- fly tipping/illegal waste dumping
- freedom of information/subject access request
- missed bin collection
- planning breach
- privately rented home repairs (part of our lettings scheme)
- roads and highways (potholes; streetlights; parking; gullies; HGVs)
- street cleansing (litter; dog bins; grass cutting)
- trees and high hedges
- unauthorised Gypsy and Traveller encampments
Complaint handling
Find out how we deal with most customer complaints. However, should your complaint be about children's social care and be related to a child in need; a looked after child; a child leaving care; adoption; or special guardianship it may follow our children's social care complaints procedure.
You can also download our leaflet about how we handle complaints (link opens in new window).
Staff are committed to dealing with all communications and complaints fairly, but in a minority of cases customers may behave unacceptably or be unreasonably persistent in their contacts. This can have an impact on addressing the concerns raised and cause significant resource issues. In these situations we may need to take steps to manage expectations and behaviours. Our Unreasonable Customer Behaviour Policy and Procedure (PDF) sets out how we deal with cases of this nature.