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Advise on complaining to a council

A personal view based on our experiences.

Firstly on making a complaint remember that you are their customer and that they are publicly accountable.

However you are not their customer in the conventional sense of the word, as normally if you are not satisfied with the level of service on offer you could take your business elsewhere, whereas in this instance you have no choice.

In normal circumstances if customers are continually dissatisfied they would take their business to competitors and the original provider would go under. This is how things work in the commercial marketplace but unfortunately this is not the case with councils, as no matter how dissatisfied you are there is no other choice open to you. Other than moving of course.

Making the complaint

In the first instance on making a complaint you are likely to be informed that your initial contact is not a complaint but an "enquiry" or alternatively you are "bringing the matter to their attention". If you consider it to be acomplaint insist that it is recorded as such.

For example if the local authority has a statutory duty to do something but has failed in that duty. In this instance you could be complaining that they have allowed the situation to arise due to their failings, therefore it is a complaint.

If they can classify it as an enquiry etc. it will not be recorded as a complaint, even though this may have been your intention, and it will also not be classified as a complaint in the statistics they quote in justifying themselves. ie the amount of complaints they have received regarding that matter in a given period, or their overall performance in the amount of complaints received by the authority, customer satisfaction levels etc.

Don't bother phoning, its a waste of time as you require proof of what has been said.

Always put everything in writing, don't use online complaints forms they are often fraught with problems, after spending a lot of time and effort completing them the whole thing can conveniently disappear on being submitted and you have to start the whole process over, therefore people just give up out of frustration. Also you wont have a copy.

 Sending an email from your personal account is ideal and you will have a copy, which you are likely to need. If you are complaining to the IW council send it to kim.dueck@iow.gov.uk

 What to include

• what exactly you are complaining about
• state clearly that it is a complaint,
• what outcome you require (what you want done about whatever you are complaining about)
• any questions you require an answer to

The IW councils complaints procedure states that you will receive an acknowledgement within 5 working days and a full reply in 20 working days. If you do not receive an acknowledgement (very likely) email again and ask why not as this is their policy.

If they do not take their own procedures seriously it can hardly install confidence in them taking your complaint seriously.

On receiving a reply, if you are not satisfied with the outcome forward the original complaint to them again explaining that you are not satisfied, explain why and what you want done.

Also clearly state that this is your "Stage 2 complaint in order to make every effort to settle the matter on a local level"

Once again you should receive an acknowledgement within 5 working days and a full reply in 20 working days.

If you remain dissatisfied with this final reply refer the complaint to the Local Government Ombudsman http://www.lgo.org.uk/

Trouble is regardless of the councils policies they are aware that they can just ignore them and do as they please as they are not accountable.

The only option you have to complain about the way they handle your complaint is to take it to the local government ombudsman who are supposedly independent and unbiased.

Read about how unbiased they are here:http://local-government-ombudsman-lgo.blogspot.com/

Or on any of the other numerous websites about the cover ups and whitewashes.

Just Google LGO bias

Talibanboyo at 01:35PM on Jul 26, 2009

Trouble is regardless of the councils policies they are aware that they can just ignore them and do as they please as they are not accountable.

The only option you have to complain about the way they handle your complaint is to take it to the local government ombudsman who are supposedly independent and unbiased.

Read about how unbiased they are here:http://local-government-ombudsman-lgo.blogspot.com/

 

 

Or on any of the other numerous websites about the cover ups and whitewashes.

Just Google LGO bias

TRY THIS WEBSITE  http://lgowatcher.blogspot.com/

OR THESE FORUMS http://amv3.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=9