Compliments, comments and complaints - Print version

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Speak up, we're listening

Coventry City Council is committed to putting local people and their needs at the heart of what it does. We want to ensure that people have a positive and trouble-free experience with us in all transactions and interactions. However, sometimes things go wrong. When things go wrong, we encourage people to speak up, so that we can make things right.

We want to hear from you if you:

How to make your comment, compliment or complaint [https://www.coventry.gov.uk/contact-council/comments-compliments-complaints/3]

Privacy notice

We will use the information you provide to handle your complaint in line with the Council’s Compliments, comments and complaints policy. We may share this information with other organisations which may include independent external investigators, children’s advocacy services and the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.

We will only share your information if this is part of solving your complaint. More information on how we handle personal information and your rights under the data protection legislation can be found in the full privacy notice [https://www.coventry.gov.uk/privacynotice]

Comments, compliments and complaints - general

Address: Coventry City Council
PO Box 7097
Coventry
CV6 9SL

Telephone: 0808 583 4333 [tel:08085834333]

How can we help?

We understand that sometimes things go wrong or that you might be unhappy about something.

If something isn’t working, needs fixing, or needs to be done, please tell us. In most cases we can quickly put things right through our normal service delivery processes.

You don’t need to raise a complaint to get it sorted — the quickest and easiest way is to use one of our online forms to tell us about things like:

Our Tell Us [http://www.coventry.gov.uk/tellus] pages contain a full list of everything you can report using our online forms, which will immediately route your enquiry, feedback or concerns to the correct service area and help with faster resolution. Most problems are resolved this way.

Are you unhappy with a decision we've made? 

For some matters there are set appeals or review processes which you should use if you think we've got something wrong. These sit outside of the Compliments, Comments or Complaints process and include:

Outside scope

Certain other matters are outside of the scope of the Council’s Compliments, Comments and Complaints policy to investigate or determine. These include:

  • matters of law or central Government policy, e.g. Council Tax legislation
  • matters where the customer or the Council have already started legal proceedings, such as where Particulars of Claim have been filed at court
  • matters where ongoing action is being taken by either the Council or another party and considering the complaint might prejudice such action
  • matters which are currently subject to an appeal, or have already been subject to an appeal and decided by a court or independent tribunal
  • concerns relating to policies, procedures or budgetary decisions already made by the Council, (unless you are directly impacted by them, or they raise wider public interest issues)
  • complaints that have already been investigated at all stages of the Complaints policy and concluded that the Council were not at fault, or which have already been addressed by an Ombudsman ruling
  • issues that occurred more than 12 months before the date of the complaint
  • matters relating to requests for information under Freedom of Information (FOI), Environment Information Regulations (EIR), Environmental Impact Assessments or Data Protection legislation, including data breaches
  • complaints about schools and colleges (you should contact the school directly and follow their procedure)

Formal complaints

We can only investigate complaints for issues that have already been reported to the council but haven’t been resolved.

If you have already reported an issue and given the service area a reasonable opportunity to put things right but it still hasn’t been resolved, please let us know by completing our Speak Up Compliments, Comments and Complaints form [https://myaccount.coventry.gov.uk/service/Your_feedback___Compliments__Comments_and_complaints] so we can investigate it.

Most complaints are dealt with under the corporate Compliments, Comments and Complaints [https://www.coventry.gov.uk/contact-council/complaints-policy] policy, but there are some complaints that have to follow a separate process:

Comments, compliments and complaints - general

Address: Coventry City Council
PO Box 7097
Coventry
CV6 9SL

Telephone: 0808 583 4333 [tel:08085834333]

Compliments, Comments and Complaints policy and processes

At Coventry City Council we are committed to providing excellent customer service by putting local people and their needs at the heart of all we do. We encourage our customers to be involved in the decisions we make and in the development of the services we deliver.

Your feedback is important to us. Listening to your views helps us learn from your experiences, take action to put things right if something has gone wrong, and understand what we can do differently to continually improve and provide our services in the most effective and efficient ways.

Where there are concerns, complaints or service failings we want to address them quickly and effectively, resolving them as early as possible, and seek to achieve a satisfactory outcome for all concerned.

Our Compliments, Comments and Complaints [https://www.coventry.gov.uk/contact-council/complaints-policy] policy provides a clear and systematic framework for dealing with compliments, comments or complaints in a fair, consistent and structured manner.

Please tell us of your experiences, positive or otherwise, using our online Speak Up Compliments, comments and complaints form [https://myaccount.coventry.gov.uk/service/Your_feedback___Compliments__Comments_and_complaints].

A quick guide to making a complaint

The Local Government Ombudsman has produced a short 3-minute video to explain how the complaints process works .

How we handle your complaints

Our Complaints handling guidance [/downloads/download/4587/complaints_handling_guidance].is an internal guide for managers and staff setting out how we deal with comments, compliments and complaints, but is published for transparency.

Comments, compliments and complaints - general

Address: Coventry City Council
PO Box 7097
Coventry
CV6 9SL

Telephone: 0808 583 4333 [tel:08085834333]

What if I need some support?

If you want help or support with your complaint you may want to ask someone to act for you, such as a friend or relative, or Citizens Advice [https://www.coventrycitizensadvice.org.uk/]. You can also contact your local councillor [/councillors] or your Member of Parliament to take up a complaint for you. Where necessary we can arrange:

Comments, compliments and complaints - general

Address: Coventry City Council
PO Box 7097
Coventry
CV6 9SL

Telephone: 0808 583 4333 [tel:08085834333]

Unreasonable or vexatious complainants policy

The Council’s Compliments, Comments and Complaints process aims to deal with complaints in a fair, consistent and proportionate manner, to find out what went wrong and try to put things right.

Most complaints we receive are resolved either informally or through the complaints process without difficulty.

We believe that all complainants should have the right to be heard, understood and respected, and we do not normally need to limit the frequency or nature of contact that customers may have with our staff or Councillors during this time.

However, in a small number of cases, some customers may interact with our staff or Councillors in a way that is unreasonable, either by behaving unacceptably or by being unreasonably persistent in the frequency and nature of their contacts. Others may pursue complaints which have appear to have no substance, or which have already been investigated and determined.

Such actions can impede investigation of their complaint, or complaints made by others. In some cases, they can have significant resource issues for the Council and hinder our ability to maintain normal service levels. They may also have a detrimental impact on staff wellbeing.

We will not tolerate aggressive or abusive behaviour, unreasonable demands, or unreasonable persistence.

Our Unreasonable or vexatious complainants policy [https://www.coventry.gov.uk/contact-council/unreasonable-vexatious-complaints-policy] identifies situations where a customer, either individually or as part of a group, might be considered as acting unreasonably in pursuit of their complaint(s) and sets out how we will manage such situations.

 

 

Annual complaints reports - How are we doing?

Complaints data provides us with a valuable insight into the effectiveness of our day-to-day operations. It can help us identify areas of repeated service failure or highlight gaps in our service provision. We can then use this information to inform key business decisions and drive service improvements.

Similarly, lessons learnt from upheld complaints can help us take steps to prevent future recurrences and identify opportunities for us to make positive changes to improve service delivery.

Analysing complaints data enables us to review individual services’ performance, both in respect of the number and types of complaints being received as well as in terms of how effectively complaints are being handled, the time taken to resolve, and the outcomes reached. It also allows us to track variations in our performance over time and compare performance against other councils using the same Key Performance Indicators (KPI's).

We publish regular reports on how we meet our performance standards, giving figures of complaints received and decisions made, together with general feedback on performance.

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