Examples of unreasonable actions
Each case should be considered on its own circumstances. The examples given below are illustrative and not exhaustive and are intended as guidance to allow officers to identify complainant behaviours which may fall within these boundaries.
Examples of complainant actions which may be considered to be unreasonable include:
- being abusive, offensive, threatening or acting in a manner intended to intimidate. This includes any use of racist, sexist, homophobic or other discriminatory language
- making excessive demands on the time and resources of staff or Councillors through numerous and / or frequent contact in relation to a specific complaint or complaints. This can include:
- overload of emails, texts or letters
- making lengthy or frequent phone calls
- leaving multiple voicemails
- expecting and chasing for immediate responses to contacts made
- submitting repeat contacts or complaints, essentially about the same issues but with minor additions / variations, which the complainant insists make these ‘new’ complaints
- adopting a ‘scatter gun’ approach, by pursuing parallel complaints or contacts about the same issue across various areas of the Council or with various members of staff or Councillors at the same time
- refusing to specify the grounds of a complaint, despite offers of help with this from the Council’s staff
- refusing to co-operate with the complaint investigation process, i.e. failing to provide requested information that may be important for the investigation, yet still wishing their complaint to be resolved
- insisting on the complaint being dealt with in ways which are incompatible with the Council’s adopted complaints procedure or with good practice
- refusing to accept that certain issues are not within the Council’s jurisdiction to influence, or not within the scope of the complaints policy, despite having been provided with information about the policy’s scope
- frequently changing the basis of the complaint as the investigation proceeds
- changing or denying statements they made at an earlier stage
- raising many detailed but unimportant questions and insisting that they are fully answered
- introducing trivial or irrelevant new information at a later stage, which they expect to be included and commented on
- refusing to accept documented evidence as factual
- providing false information and / or submitting falsified documents from themselves or others
- making unjustified complaints about staff who are trying to deal with their complaint(s) and seeking to have them replaced
- distributing or publishing covertly recorded interactions, including putting recordings of interactions online or live broadcasting / streaming interactions with Council staff or Councillors, without the consent of those involved
- manipulating or editing any recordings of interactions (overtly or covertly made)
- putting, or threatening to put, information on social media or online which includes personal information of Council staff or Councillors without their consent, and / or making defamatory statements about them online
- persistently seeking an outcome which we have already explained is unrealistic or unachievable for policy, legal or other valid reasons
- refusing to accept the complaint outcome; repeatedly arguing points with no new evidence, complaining about the decision reached and / or denying that an adequate response has been given
- persistently wanting to pursue a complaint which we consider has already been investigated and responded to in full and has exhausted the Council’s complaints procedure
