Complaints Policy and Procedure

When a complaint is found to be justified the Council will:

• apologise to you and anyone else affected by the error
• explain what has been / will be done to put the mistake right
• explain how the error occurred and what has been done to prevent it happening again
• redress (if you have suffered loss or suffering) in line with the Local Government Ombudsman's guidance on 'Remedies'.

In some cases an apology and an explanation is all that is necessary and appropriate by way of a remedy. However, we will offer redress where we believe that this will best serve the interests of the customer and customer service. For example, practical action may be considered as part, or all, of a remedy where a complaint is about failure to take some specific action.

Consideration will also be given to any practical action suggested by you.

There will be circumstances where we are unable to put you, as the customer, back into the position you would have been in because of the amount of time lapsed or due to other events which may since have occurred. In such circumstances, we may consider restorative or financial compensation. When considering any redress we will be fair, consistent, and mindful of public money.

Reporting and learning from complaints

We are committed to learning from complaints and using complaints information to improve our services, and we will look at:

• the type of complaint
• the complaint outcome
• the timescales agreed
• whether timescales were met
• equality information about complainants

We will then:

• report regularly to Councillors on the number and type of complaints received, together with (where relevant):
  • information on the complaint outcomes
  • lessons learnt
  • what we have done to make sure this doesn't happen again
  • how we have improved services as a result of the complaint

Evaluation

In order to ensure that our Complaints Policy is effective and that we are doing what we have set out in this Policy, we will ask randomly selected customers for feedback once the complaints process has been completed. This is not related to the outcome of the complaints process but to how we dealt with your complaint.