Brief Guide to Complaining to your Local Council

The big yellow lorry has parked again outside you home, blocking out your light as well as your sense of humour. You know it will be there for days, because that is what always happens – it belongs to one of the sons of the large family next door who is involved in some sort of delivery business. It should not be there – you know that because the sign says lorries over 3 tonnes may not be parked over night. Why can’t he read the sign? Why does he have to park outside your house? You pay an extortionate amount of council tax so why doesn’t someone do something about it? Then you realise that someone is you. Having tried to talk to the son, and his very nice mother, the situation has not improved. It’s time to make that call to the local authority even though you know it will take you on a journey punctuated by frustration, wrong turns, dead ends and irritation that fans the fire ignited by the yellow lorry until it burns red hot within you.

It may not be a yellow lorry that causes you to make a complaint to the local authority, it may be you feel you are not getting value for money for your council tax, or it may be the graffiti on your garage or the graffiti–like notice scrawled by a neighbour telling people in no uncertain terms not to park on his manor, or maybe your rubbish bins were not emptied, again, or someone on your street has mistaken the residential area for a dump for rusty car parts or an all night club that specialises in really bad music. Whatever the cause may be for your complaint, the process for dealing with it will be largely the same.

So where do you start? The main telephone number for the local authority will simply be the reception – although you may be boiling inside, it would not be helpful to explode upon hearing the words “How may I help you?” from the receptionist. Try to keep the reason for calling brief and polite but with enough relevant information to be connected to the right department. Before you are put through, ask for the direct line of the department because it is almost inevitable that you will be put on hold and then lost in the system.

Be prepared to repeat your plight, but again in a calm and non-confrontational way. You need to locate the person who has the power to help – no one will be prepared to lead you there if you wildly fire off verbal missiles to the first person that has the misfortune to answer the phone.

The key is to find that one person – and there will be one – who can empathise with your situation and direct you to someone who has the authority to take action and deal with your complaint in a way that is satisfactory to you. At each juncture of your journey it is advisable to take the name of the person you are talking to; knowing that a conversation is being recorded, even mentally, tends to sharpen the mind and ability to respond in a way that would hold up to scrutiny later.

Using the telephone can be the most satisfactory and efficient method of making a complaint as it is immediate, with the potential to diffuse and alleviate a stressful situation. However, if you are unlucky enough to find yourself on the end of the line to someone determined to use the system to make life as difficult as possible, the telephone can be intolerable and a source of immense frustration. It is easy to get infuriated in a situation like this, but remember no matter how mechanical or maniacal the person on the other end of the line can seem, they are, in fact, a real person, and as such are probably vulnerable to carefully-pitched appeals to their better nature.

Letters are great as they give you the space and opportunity to formulate your thoughts and present them without interruption. However, a letter is not immediate, as opposed to email, where you know when you press ‘send’ your complaint has a good chance of hitting its mark.

Possibly, the most efficient way to make a complaint is via the local authority website. It should provide detailed information with appropriate links that direct you to the correct department. Like a letter, the website will give you time to calm down, formulate your thoughts and approach the problem in a measured way – provided, that is, the page works and performs as it says it should. There must surely be great pressure on a council’s IT team to keep the system up to speed with the wrath of the general public!

The following is an example of a local authority complaints procedure, using Lewisham Council as the example. Lewisham council sets down a route to follow if you have a complaint; like the procedures for many other local authorities, it looks tortuous at first glance (especially if you are steaming over a particular issue) but it is undeniably thorough: -

Where possible, an officer or manager receiving a verbal complaint will try to resolve the issue within 24 hours.

Stage 1 - The council will write to you within two working days of receiving your complaint to let you know they have received it. The Service Manager will investigate your complaint and send you a written response within 10 working days.

Stage 2 - If you are unhappy with the response to your complaint at Stage 1, write to the council and let them know you would like your complaint investigated at Stage 2, stating reasons why you feel your complaint is unresolved. They will write to you within two working days of receiving your Stage 2 complaint telling you they have received it. The Head of Service will investigate your complaint and send you a written response within 20 working days.

Stage 3 - If you are unhappy with the outcome at Stage 2, you can write to the Chief Executive: Barry Quirk, Chief Executive, Lewisham Town Hall, Catford Road, Catford SE6 4RU. The council will write to you within two working days of receiving your complaint to let you know they have received it. The Chief Executive will carry out an independent investigation, or authorise the corporate complaints team to do so on his behalf, and will send you a written response within 20 working days. If a complaint is complicated, it may take a longer time to reply. The officer responsible for the investigation will write to let you know if this is the case.

Other boroughs, such as Lambeth, also have an incredibly detailed and specifically staged approach to dealing with complaints, involving corporate complaint managers followed by complaint officers and senior managers within the council, followed by complaint officers at the Chief Executive’s Complaints Unit (CCU), an independent complaints body.

Southwark Council has a page optimistically entitled “Compliments, Comments & Complaints” that lists a variety of ways to make a complaint including providing a form that you can complete or a link to their email, telephone numbers and invitations to visit their service point at reception. It also states that any compliment, comment or complaint will be investigated and resolved within ten days, unless they inform you otherwise.

All councils have a procedure to deal with complaints; customer service is high on their agenda today, at least at management level. They want to be seen to be doing the right thing and by and large will make every effort to be helpful, or at least to be seen to be helpful – provided you find the right person on the right day in the right mood! As a general rule, if the passage of your complaint is halted at any stage for whatever reason when dealing with a particular person, the next step is to take your complaint to the next person up the pecking order.

Should you feel completely thwarted in your efforts to resolve a problem through the council, despite following all the procedures, the next step is to write to the local government ombudsman; the council you are dealing with will have details of how to contact the ombudsman relevant to them. The ombudsman will have the final say on a situation and at least bring it to a conclusion.

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