Stage 1 - Service Investigation
On receipt of a complaint, we will undertake an initial review to check if the concerns raised fall within our definition and policy scope of what can be accepted as a complaint (see sections 4 to 6).
If we consider your contact to be a service request, we will reassign it to the relevant service area so that they may have an opportunity to put things right through routine service delivery, and it will not be managed as a complaint.
If your concern falls within the scope of the Complaints policy, a member of the Resident Experience team (or the service area for Statutory complaints) will contact you by telephone or email to discuss your concerns. Where possible, we will look to resolve the matter informally for you within three working days, without the need for escalation through the formal complaints process.
Where early resolution is not possible or an informal approach is not considered appropriate, or you remain determined that your concern is logged as a formal complaint, then (subject to the exclusions set out in sections 5 and 6) we will accept your concern as a formal complaint.
We will advise you as to how your concern is being dealt with, e.g. either informally, or accepted through the formal complaint handling procedure.
Accepted complaints will be logged and acknowledged by the Service Recovery team within five working days of receipt by the Council (three working days for Statutory complaints) and will be allocated to the relevant service area for investigation and response.
All contact with you will usually be by email if the complaint was made electronically, or if you have not indicated any other preferred method of communication.
The acknowledgement will set out our understanding of your complaint, the outcome you are after, and advise you of the name of the investigating officer and the date the response will be provided. If any aspect of your complaint is unclear, we will ask you for clarification.
A senior officer in the relevant service area will conduct a balanced investigation of the matters raised, and we will issue our response within 10 working days of the date of acknowledgement.
If, during the stage 1 investigation, you raise any additional related complaints and the response has not been issued, we will incorporate these with the original stage 1 complaint. If the stage 1 response has already been issued, or the matters appear unrelated, or it would unreasonably delay the response, we will log these as a new complaint.
Some complaints may be complex and may require longer than 10 working days to investigate. In such cases, we may extend the response date by up to a further 10 working days. If so, we will contact you to explain the reason(s) for the extension and the new date for response. We will also advise you of your right to take our decision to extend to the Ombudsman.
Where the service being complained about is provided by a third party (e.g. a contractor) on behalf of the Council, they will be required to investigate and respond at stage 1 in accordance with the Council’s complaints policy.
On completion of the stage 1 investigation, we will provide you with our response confirming the issues investigated, what decision has been reached (Upheld; Partially Upheld; or Not Upheld) and why. We will also provide details of how to escalate the matter for review at stage 2 if you are still dissatisfied.
A complaint will be upheld if our investigation finds that the Council was at fault in all or most of our actions or lack of actions, and that the responsibility for this lies predominantly with ourselves.
A complaint will be partially upheld if the Council was at fault in some of our actions, but your actions or those of a third party also contributed to the matter that resulted in the complaint.
A complaint will be not upheld if we conclude that the Council was not at fault in our actions, and we acted in accordance with policy and procedures and in good faith.
Should your complaint be upheld, our response will also contain an apology, details of any remedy offered to put things right, and details of any actions still to be taken and when they will be completed.