Website and telephone payments Sunday 19 May
Our website and telephone payment systems are unavailable between 9am and 2pm on Sunday 19 May. You will not be able to pay for any council services on our website or over the phone during this time.
We are committed to providing high quality services to those who live in, work in, or visit North Yorkshire, but in any organisation things can go wrong. We want to know when this happens so that we can try to put it right and prevent it from happening again. We would also like to know when we do something well, or if you have any comments you would like to make on our services.
This policy relates to complaints, compliments or comments made about those services North Yorkshire Council provides, other than housing, adult social care, children’s social care, or councillors code of conduct (which are covered by separate policies).
You may want to let us know when you have received good service and we would like to hear from you. By finding out what our customers value, we can share that information with services to help us improve.
Comments are more neutral in nature and we appreciate constructive feedback from our service users. This can help inform our service planning and operational decision making.
We define a complaint as an expression of dissatisfaction, however made, about the standard of service, actions or lack of action by the organisation, its own staff, or those acting on its behalf, affecting an individual or group.
It might be about:
There are some things that we will not deal with under this policy. These include:
Complaints about insurance decisions will not be accepted under this policy. However, we will consider complaints about the insurance process, for example delay.
Complaints about some of our services are dealt with by different policies. These services are:
As time passes it becomes more difficult to investigate events fairly and fully. We therefore ask that complaints are made no later than 12 months after the date you became aware of the problem. However, we understand that there may be reasons why you may not have been able to bring your complaint during that time and if you feel you have good reason, please explain them to us and we will consider whether it is appropriate to extend our timescales.
A complaint can be made by anyone using a council service, or anyone affected by any error in our service provision, or by any other person on behalf of an individual (in these cases we must have consent from the individual in writing, unless you are the parent or legal guardian of a child who is using services, or a person legally entitled to act for the person using services).
The Council will consider complaints made anonymously, but may not investigate, for example where we do not have enough information. If you do complain anonymously we cannot provide a response and will not be able to provide any information should you contact us about it later.
You can ask that your complaint is dealt with in confidence and we will do this where possible, but in some cases progressing the complaint would necessarily reveal your identity. If this is the case we will let you know and discuss next steps.
You can make a complaint in a number of ways:
In the first instance, if you know the member of staff who delivers the service you can contact them about the problem and they will do their best to resolve the issue quickly.
Otherwise you can contact us:
Although we will accept complaints made via social media, in order to maintain confidentiality and privacy, we will not progress them using this method. We will ask you how else you would like to communicate with us in order for us to investigate and provide a full response.
Ideally the complaint should be made immediately, or as soon as possible after the reason for complaint has occurred.
Putting the complaint in writing can be helpful, as it allows you to clearly set out your complaint and is an effective way of making sure we understand your case. You can do this by email or by post, though using our online form is a fast and efficient way to reach us.
When making your complaint, you should let us know:
If you need help to make your complaint, for example an interpreter, or provision of information in different formats please let us know and we will make all reasonable efforts to help you.
You can also ask someone else to make the complaint on your behalf, such as a relative or friend, or you can contact a relevant organisation, such as Citizens Advice Bureau or an advocacy service, or you can contact your local councillor. If you do ask someone else to make your complaint for you, we will need to have your consent in writing for us to progress this. You can use the form at the end of this policy if you wish for this purpose.
The Corporate Policy has two stages. Complaints will usually start at stage 1, then, if the complainant remains dissatisfied, progress to stage 2. However, where a case has been ongoing for some time without having entered the formal complaint process, or if it is a particularly complex or sensitive case, we may start the process at stage 2.
Where progression to stage 2 would not be of benefit to either party, we may refuse a stage 2 request. This would be for:
Where we do refuse a stage 2 investigation we will write to you to explain why and what your next steps would be.
Stage 1 is handled by the service team relevant to the case. They are in the best position to know the details of your case and potentially provide a fast response. Depending on the circumstances surrounding your complaint, any member of a service team could handle the case, though if your complaint is about a specific individual, they will not investigate the complaint themselves.
You can expect:
If the investigation will take longer than 15 working days we will tell you, explaining why and letting you know when you can expect a full response.
We may suspend a case for reasons such as where a legal process is intended or has started that affects the complaint, or where we are reliant on the outcome of another process e.g. tribunal. We will also suspend a case where it is unclear what the points of complaint are until they are agreed, or if we need more information or documents from you that we require to progress the case.
If you are unhappy with the outcome at this stage, you can ask that your complaint be considered at stage 2. We would expect you to ask for this within 20 working days of the date of the stage 1 response, but will use discretion if we receive this later. We would not consider any stage 2 request received more than six months after the stage 1 response, unless there is a compelling reason to do so.
Your stage 2 request should include your reasons for wishing to progress to the next stage and what your desired outcome is.
Stage 2 is a formal investigation carried out by an appropriate member of staff who has not had any previous involvement in the case.
At stage 2 you can expect:
Where there is good reason, for example a case is particularly complex, or key people are not available, the timescale for response may be extended. We will contact you to explain why this has happened and when you can expect a response.
A case at stage 2 can be suspended under certain circumstances (see Stage 1), which will be explained to you should this happen.
On completion of a stage 2 investigation the Council will consider the matter closed and will not enter into any further correspondence on the issue, unless significantly new and relevant information is provided that may alter the outcome of the complaint. We would expect this information to be provided at the earliest opportunity. This information will be considered, but we may choose not to take any further action if we believe it would not change the outcome to your complaint.
As above, we may not accept a stage 2 request. If so we will let you know why within 5 working days and tell you how you can refer your complaint to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.
We will ask you what you would like us to do to remedy your complaint (your desired outcome) and, where a complaint is upheld, we will consider this, but it may not be possible to do exactly what you have asked us to.
Where fault has been found, we will apologise and try to put you back in the position you would have been in if nothing had gone wrong. This could be the provision of a service, correcting an error, or a change of decision. It may be that an apology is a suitable remedy for the complaint. The remedy offered will depend on what has happened and the effect, or injustice, that this has caused.
We will look at why the fault happened and aim to make sure it does not happen again. This may result in corrective actions such as staff training, improved provision of information or a change to our procedures.
Included in our response at stage 2, or if we have rejected a stage 2 investigation, we will let you know how to refer your complaint on to a suitable independent body for consideration should you remain unhappy. This will usually be the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO).
You will usually be expected to have exhausted the Council’s complaints policy before referral to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman and we will make it clear in our responses to you when this has happened. However, if you have not heard from us within a reasonable time, they may decide to look into your complaint anyway.
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman is an independent body that will consider complaints about councils, adult social care providers and some other organisations providing public services. It will normally only consider complaints made within 12 months from the date you first knew about the matter complained about, but can decide to look at older complaints if there is a good reason to do so.
Information on how to refer your complaint to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman can be found at:
Website: Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman
Telephone: 0300 061 0614
Opening hours: Monday to Friday 10am to 4pm (except public holidays)
We understand that it is frustrating when we do not meet your expectations and just the act of making a complaint can be a very emotional or stressful experience. Our staff will work with you to make the process as easy as possible, but we please ask that you treat them with respect and do not use abusive language or behaviour. We may ask you for more information, or for relevant documents or other evidence and would appreciate if you could provide this quickly where possible so that we can progress the investigation.
Where we consider a customer to be unreasonable in their actions, we will write explaining why we believe this is the case and what action we will take. This is explained in our Unreasonable Complainant Behaviour Policy. On rare occasions, if behaviour is extreme or unmanageable we may decide that we will no longer progress the complaint through our policy.