We are moving to a new telephone system. This may cause some initial issues and disruption to calls while it is being set up. If you have any issues, you may wish to call back at another time. We appreciate your patience while we implement the new system and apologise for any disruption that you may experience.
Planning Register and HMO Renewals
Due to essential maintenance the Planning Register and HMO Renewals will not be available from 3pm, Wednesday 21 May until the afternoon of Thursday 22 May 2025. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.
How to make a complaint
How to report a problem and who to contact if you have a complaint about a council service.
Report a problem
If you're contacting us about an issue for the first time, please get in touch with the service directly so that we have the opportunity to put things right.
How to make a complaint about other council services
All other council services follow our corporate complaints procedure which is based on guidance from the:
Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman
Housing Ombudsman
If you have tried reporting the problem and it has not been resolved, you can complete our online form to make a complaint.
We're committed to ensuring everyone has equal access to the complaints procedure.
Let us know if you have any specific access needs. You can have an advocate make the complaint for you and attend any meetings or conversations that may be needed.
We'll need consent from you to discuss your complaint with someone else.
Telling us about your issue will not have a negative effect on the service you receive.
We welcome any feedback that helps us improve and maintain high standards.
We'll respond to your complaint within 10 working days of your complaint being acknowledged
How we deal with complaints
We have processes to follow to make sure that every complaint is dealt with fairly and sorted out as quickly as possible.
For most complaints, there are different stages that we follow.
Early resolution
If your concern is straightforward and the Customer Feedback Team think it can be resolved quickly they will ask the service to resolve it.
If your concern has not been resolved within 24 hours it will be logged as a complaint.
Stage 1 complaint
Your complaint will be handled by the service you're complaining about.
We aim to respond to complaints at this stage within 10 working days of it being acknowledged.
You can talk to them again if you're unhappy with parts of their reply.
Stage 2 complaint
If you're still unhappy you can ask to take your complaint to stage 2 where it will be considered by one of our Customer Feedback Managers, who are independent of the department your complaint is about.
We aim to respond to complaints within 20 working days at this second stage being requested.
We'll keep you informed if the matter is complex and likely to take longer.
The Ombudsman
You can contact the Ombudsman at any time but generally, they ask you to complete the council’s complaints process first. We'll make it clear throughout the process how you can contact the Ombudsman.
After stage 2, if you're still not satisfied with the response, the next step would be to approach the Local Government Ombudsman or the Housing Ombudsman Service (if your complaint is about housing).