How to report a problem and who to contact if you have a complaint about a council service.
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.
Go to our report a problem page to tell a council service about an issue.
The services below deal with complaints in different ways.
All other council services follow our corporate complaints procedure which is based on guidance from the:
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
View the Housing Ombudsman Complaint Handling Code self-assessment.
For more information read:
Annual complaints and service improvement report for the Housing Management service.
You can give feedback about council services.
Otherwise, send an email to customerfeedback@brighton-hove.gov.uk.
If you need help to submit your feedback, phone 01273 291 229.
Phone lines are open Monday to Friday 9:30am to 1:30pm. Phone lines are closed on weekends and bank holidays.