Dealing with compliments and complaints

How we deal with compliments

Your compliment will be passed to the appropriate department. If it relates to a particular member of staff, they will be informed.

How we deal with complaints

Where possible we will work quickly and informally to resolve any area of dissatisfaction during the normal course of business.

Surrey Heath Borough Council does have a two stage formal complaints procedure. At each stage of our complaints procedure you have the right to take things further if you remain unhappy with the way we dealt with your complaint.

Stage one

Service management response required.

This is when you tell us what area of our service or actions you are unhappy with. We may need to discuss or share your complaint including your contact details with relevant Council staff, members and third parties contracted by the Council. Please try to include all elements of your concerns that you would like us to consider.

We aim to send you a full response within ten working days for a stage one complaint. If this is not possible, we will write to you to explain this and give you a date by which a full response will be sent.

Stage two

Review by an independent senior manager.

If all or part of the complaint is not resolved to your satisfaction at stage one, you may request to progress to stage two. Where possible, when requesting a review against a stage one response. It would be helpful for new or additional information, not contained within the initial complaint to be submitted to better understand why you remain dissatisfied. Stage two will be the Council’s final response.

We aim to send you a full response within 20 working days for a stage two complaint. If this is not possible, we will write to you to explain this and give you a date by which a full response will be sent.

Where possible, all formal complaints will be investigated by a senior member of staff, generally the relevant strategic director/corporate head of service with overall responsibility for the service concerned.

This is the final stage of Surrey Heath Borough Council’s complaints procedure.

Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman

If you are still unhappy with the way we have dealt with your complaint after going through both stages, you may take the matter to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman is independent of us and investigates complaints about local authorities.

The Ombudsman's details are as follows:

Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, PO Box 4771, Coventry CV4 0EH

Phone: 0300 061 0614

Visit the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman website (external link)