The Policy - purpose and definition
The purpose of this policy is to:
- clarify how you may make a complaint,
- highlight any exceptions to the standard complaints
procedure,
- define the standard of service you can expect when you make a
complaint,
- recognise the importance of complaints in providing feedback
about Council services and performance,
- set out how the Council will monitor complaints, and use that
information to improve services and identify training
needs.
For the purposes of this policy and procedure, a complaint
is:
“an expression of dissatisfaction with the standard of service
provided by the Council, or with something the Council or a member
of its workforce may or may not have done”.
This definition is in line with those of the Local Government
Ombudsman and the British Standards Institute.
In simple terms a complaint may be about lack of response,
delays, ongoing service problems and/or the behaviour of Council
employees. It includes:
- Doing something wrong
- Doing something it should not have done
- Failing to do something it should have done
- Behaving unfairly, discourteously or discriminatory
- Not carrying out a service to an agreed standard
- Not responding to a request for a service within its stated
timescale
This definition does not include appeals against, or objections
to, decisions of the Council which should generally be pursued by
way of the appropriate statutory or other appeals procedure. In
these cases, advice will be given on how an appeal may be made and
about any time scales which apply.
Any member of the public or their representative, businesses,
public and voluntary bodies, may make a complaint.
Complaints can be made in person, by phone, by e-mail, by
letter, or by using the “complaints” form in the Councils’ leaflet,
“Speak
out…"
Back
Standards
The Council aims to deal with complaints
quickly, effectively and in a fair and honest
way:
i. Each
complaint will be recorded on receipt;
ii. It will be
acknowledged within 5 working days of receipt in an appropriate
manner and language;
Response standards will be set and customers will be told what
they can expect to happen and when;
(The current response standard is that a full response is
provided within 15 days from receipt of complaint for informal and
stage 1; and a full response is provided within 20 days of receipt
for stage 2)
Customers will be kept informed of progress in dealing with their
complaints, and if it cannot be resolved within the agreed time
scales;
Where there is more than one stage in the process for dealing
with a complaint, customers will be told at the end of each stage
how they may pursue their complaint further.
The outcome of each complaint will be monitored. Information
obtained will be fed back to the relevant service and included in
an annual report to the Council Executive, and to the relevant
Overview and Scrutiny Panel.
Each service has a nominated Complaints Officer (CO) who is
responsible for ensuring that complaints are logged, tracking
progress at each stage, and recording outcomes.
The Customer Services Manager (Front-line services), based in
Customer Services, Libraries and Information is responsible
for:
- Developing procedures and guidance for complaints
handling;
- Developing and monitoring use of a Council-wide complaints
database;
- Giving guidance on the investigation of individual complaints,
and ensuring cross-service complaints investigations are being
co-ordinated by one of the Services involved.
- Liaising with Complaints Officers
- Providing feedback on complaints performance indicators to
services
- Guidance notes and training on best practice in complaints
handling is offered to all staff involved in dealing with
complaints.
Complaints reports
An annual report will be produced by Customer Services,
Libraries and Information Service to Assistant Directors/Heads of
Service. The report will:
- identify improvements to service delivery introduced in
response to complaints;
- recommend action to minimise or avoid similar complaints in
future;
- recommend procedural improvements for handling and resolving
complaints;
- identify training and information needs;
- Report on trend data.
Back
You can make a Complaint,
Comment or
Compliment in person, by phone, by e-mail, letter, or by using
the ‘complaints’ form in the Council’s leaflet “Speak out…” or
‘comments and suggestions’ form.
We will require the following information:
- Name
- Where and how you can be contacted
- If you need any assistance in making the complaint, see
Assistance in making a complaint
- The details of your complaint
- What you want the Council to do about your complaint
- It would be very helpful to also receive information to
monitor the Council’s equalities policies, including gender, age,
ethnic origin and disability status (included in the Council’s
leaflet “Speak out…”
Steps to make a complaint
Speak to the member of staff involved
directly, or their manager, giving the opportunity for the
complaint to be resolved straight away. If you do not know
who to speak to, contact the Customer Services Manager. Their
address and other relevant addresses are included in the Council’s
leaflet “Speak Out…. If you’ve had a bad experience we’ll listen”
and more details are available on the main complaints
webpage.
Any complaint can also be made or handed in to any of the
Council’s employees or Councillors and at any of the Council’s
offices.
Dissatisfied with our Response: Using the formal
Corporate Complaints Procedure:
If you are not satisfied with the response given at the
initial stage, you are entitled to ask for your complaint to
be dealt with formally under Stage 1 of the Corporate Complaints
Procedure. Please write to the Customer Services Manager
outlining your complaint and stating that you wish to take the
matter further.
Note: A complainant cannot demand that this
procedure is used. The discretion about how to deal with a
complaint lies with the Council. In certain circumstances the
Council may decide that alternative means of dealing with
complaints would be more appropriate and this will include the
consideration of offering or agreeing to mediation. The
Monitoring Officer,who is Vernon Hitchman, Solicitor to the
Council….will decide this in consultation with the relevant
Assistant Director/Head of Service. In such cases the
complainant will be informed of the alternative approach and why
the Council has chosen to adopt it.
The formal complaints procedure has two
stages, At each stage, correspondence will be acknowledged in
writing within five working days of receipt.
Stage 1
Under Stage 1 the complaint is dealt with directly between the
complainant and Complaint Officers of the service area concerned.
It requires that the Complaint Officer for the service will receive
the complaint from the Customer Services Manager and will:
- Carry out an investigation into the complaint, identifying
what, if anything, has gone wrong,
- quickly put matters right to the complainant’s satisfaction, if
at all possible,
- Respond in writing to the complainant accordingly. Usually this
will be done within 15 working days of receipt of the complaint or,
where necessary, an explanation given (also in writing) of why it
needs to take longer. The response will tell the complainant
that they can ask for an investigation at Stage 2 of the procedure
if they are not satisfied with the response.
- Record outcome of complaint onto the complaint database
(CRM)
The procedure ends here if the complainant is satisfied.
Stage 2
A request for a Stage 2 review should be made in writing to the
Customer Services Manager and should include an explanation of the
complainant’s reasons for dissatisfaction with the handling of the
Stage 1 complaint. The Divisional Director/Head of
Service will appoint a senior officer independent of the service
area concerned, if appropriate, to carry out a review of the
Stage 1 investigation.
The aim of the review is to ensure that all matters raised in
the original complaint have been comprehensively and accurately
addressed and, if not, to ensure that this now happens. The
reviewing officer will produce a written report at the end of their
review to the appropriate Divisional Director/Head of Service
who will then reply to the Complainant.
The Stage 2 review will be completed within 20 working days of
receipt of the Stage 2 complaint. In exceptional circumstances, the
review may take longer than 20 working days. If so, the complainant
will be informed by the 20th day of the reason for the delay and
given a target date for a final response.
The final response will tell the customer how, if still not
satisfied, to complain further to the Local Government Ombudsman,
who can be contacted at:
The Commission for Local Administration in England
No2 The Oaks
Westwood Way
Westwood Business Park
Coventry
CV4 8JB
Email: enquiries.coventry@lgo.org.uk
Steps to make a comment or compliment
Comments on methods of improving service
delivery or compliments regarding the quality of service provided
are always welcome. Please feel free to share your views with
our staff/managers in person, by phone, by completing a
‘Compliments/ suggestion form. You may also complete the
online form if you prefer.
Compliments and comments will be recorded and fed back to the
relevant service/staff.
When not to use the Corporate Complaints Procedure
Some complaints are dealt with under separate
procedures, some of which are laid down by statute, Others are
serious enough to require special consideration. Also, the
Council receives complaints about matters over which it has no
control. When your complaint is received you will be informed
if it is to be handled under a different procedure or if it needs
to be redirected to a different service or agency.
Complaints listed in Appendix 1 below
will not be dealt with under this procedure
Assistance in making complaints
If you need assistance in making a complaint,
the Council will provide this as promptly as possible. Some
assistance, such as translation services, can involve a delay. You
will be told when the assistance can be provided and kept informed
of what is happening. Officers dealing with a complaint will ensure
that any required assistance is made available and is planned for
throughout the procedure.
The Council welcomes any feedback that you may have on the use
of this policy. Please send your comments for the attention of the
Customer Services Counter Manager,Guildhall, Bath, (the address and
other relevant addresses are included in the Council's leaflet
"Speak Out... If you have had a bad experience we'll listen and on
the Councils website www.bathnes.gov.uk) or hand in to
any of the Council's employees or Councillors at any of the
Council's offices.
Vexatious complaints
The Council’s policy in respect of vexatious
complaints is set out below:-
What is a vexatious complaint?
Where complainants:
- Persist in pursuing a complaint where the Councils Complaints
Procedure has been fully and properly implemented and
exhausted.
- Persistently change the substance of a complaint or continually
raise new issues or seek to prolong contact by continually raising
further concerns or questions upon receipt of a response whilst the
complaint is being addressed. (Care must be taken, however,
not to disregard new issues which are significantly different from
the original complaint as they need to be addressed as separate
complaints.)
- Have, in the course of addressing a registered complaint, had
an excessive number of contacts with the Council – placing
unreasonable demands on staff. For the purposes of
determining an excessive number, a contact may be in person, by
telephone, letter, e-mail or fax. Discretion will be used in
determining the precise number of excessive contacts applicable
under this section, using judgement based on the specific
circumstances of each individual case.
- When asked to identify outstanding areas of the complaint,
repeats complaints that have already had a full response
- Automatically responds to any communication received from the
council
- Have harassed or been personally abusive or verbally aggressive
on more than one occasion towards staff dealing with the
complaint. Staff will document all instances of harassment,
abusive or verbally aggressive behaviour.
- Have threatened or used physical violence towards staff at any
time – this will, in itself, cause personal contact with the
complainant and/or their representatives to be discontinued and the
complaint will, thereafter, only be continued through written
communication. All such incidences will be documented.
- Is known to have recorded meetings or face to face/telephone
conversations without the prior knowledge and consent of other
parties involved
Procedure for dealing with vexatious complaints
If the Council (Assistant Directors/Heads of
Service in conjunction with Complaints Officer(s) – if more than
one service is involved then the decision is made in consultation)
considers that a person has habitually, persistently and without
any reasonable grounds, made vexatious complaints in accordance
with the above criteria, either against the same or different
Council officers or services, he/she will refer the matter to the
Monitoring Officer.
The Monitoring Officer will investigate the referral, including
monitoring whether the number of complaints received by a
department are unacceptably high or had suddenly risen.
Following the investigation, if appropriate, he/she will write to
the person concerned informing him/her
- of the Council's concerns regarding the number and/or nature of
the complaints they have been making,
- that consideration is being given to restricting their use of
the Council’s complaints procedure, and/or other alternative
courses that the Council could follow, e.g. allowing the
complainant to contact only one nominated officer in the
future
- giving them the opportunity to make representations in
writing.
If, having considered any representations received, the
Monitoring Officer is satisfied that vexatious complaints have been
made, he/she will inform the person that in future any complaints
they make will be referred to him/her.
If, however the Monitoring Officer considers that reasonable
grounds for the complaint exist, he/she will arrange for the
complaint to be investigated in accordance with the complaints
procedure.
If the Monitoring Officer does not consider that reasonable
grounds for the complaint exist, he/she will inform the person that
the complaint will not be investigated and advise them of their
rights to complain to the Local Government Ombudsman. .
Back
