The needs of residents and customers are central to the way in which we deliver our services, and we believe that dealing effectively with complaints is essential to providing a good service. We recognise that we will not always get it right and complaints are not only a way of customers telling us when they are dissatisfied, but also provide useful information that can help us improve our services.

This policy sets out how we define complaints as a council and how we will respond to them. It also includes detail on the monitoring and reporting of complaints and our complaints process. Where the policy refers to customers, this includes anyone who uses or is affected by our services.

What is a complaint

A complaint is “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 of individuals.”

A complaint is not a request for service or an enquiry about a service. A service request is “a request that the organisation provides or improves a service, fixes a problem or reconsiders a decision”.

Before making a complaint, you should ensure you have given us an opportunity to resolve the issue you are raising. You should contact the relevant service first. You can find details of our services on our website. In many cases, we can resolve an issue very quickly by putting the problem right straight away. We consider these types of cases as informal service requests.

If the service is not able to resolve the issue, you can make a complaint.

The complaints process looks at how we have delivered services or reached decisions.

Complaints can be placed into one or more of the following eight categories:

• failure
• customer service
• policy or decision
• quality
• staff conduct
• technical
• communication
• best value

Certain types of issues and complaints fall outside of the council's complaints process because there are other processes more suitable for dealing with them. This includes statutory appeal or tribunal processes, other legal or regulatory requirements, housing matters dealt with under the arbitration process, or matters subject to an insurance claim.

However, when a customer is unhappy about the way that an appeal or tribunal matter was handled, for example a delay in the council preparing its submission to a tribunal or appeal panel, this will be dealt with under this complaints process.

How to make a complaint

Complaints can be made in the following ways:

Contact us by email at ComplaintsAndFOI@maidstone.gov.uk or by using our form. Alternatively, you can write to us at:

Or you can phone 01622 602000.

We are committed to making sure the way we work does not put disabled people at a disadvantage and to meeting our legal obligations under the Equality Act 2010. If you need any help or support to use our service, please let us know and we will consider what changes we can make.

We will not normally consider a complaint that is made more than twelve months after the individual first became aware of the issue they want to complain about. This is in line with good practice as operated by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.

The council is very keen to make sure elected members uphold good standards of behaviour. If you believe that a borough councillor has failed to comply with the Code of Conduct for Councillors, please contact our Monitoring Officer.

The complaints process

When dealing with a complaint we will:

• seek to understand your needs and address your complaint
• seek to obtain any relevant evidence from you
• review any relevant case records, legislation, guidance, policies and procedures
• respond within the timeframe agreed or inform you when this is not possible
• respond in plain English
• be accessible irrespective of age, disability, gender, sexual orientation, race, religion or belief, allowing any customer to provide feedback by whatever means appropriate for them
• seek to learn from complaints

We deal with complaints in line with the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman Complaint Handling Code.

The council has a two-stage complaints process:

Stage 1

We will log and acknowledge your stage 1 complaint within five working days of receiving it.

We will investigate and respond to your stage 1 complaint within 10 working days of acknowledging it. If we need to extend this timescale for any reason, we will inform you of this and explain our reason for extending the timescale.

Stage 2

If you are not happy with the stage 1 complaint response, you have the right to take your complaint to stage 2 for an independent investigation by the Information Governance team, on behalf of the Director of Strategy, Insight and Governance.

We generally expect individuals to escalate complaints to stage 2 of the complaint process within 20 working days of receiving our stage 1 response. However, we understand that this is not always possible and that individuals may want to give us an opportunity to resolve matters before escalating their complaint further. Therefore, we will generally accept requests to escalate complaints to stage 2 which are made within six months of receiving our stage 1 response.

It is important that you escalate your complaint as soon as possible if you remain unhappy with our response. It can be challenging for us to properly consider complaints as more time passes between the issue you are complaining about and our consideration of your complaint. This is because it may be difficult to obtain relevant evidence and people involved may not be able to accurately recollect what happened.

We will log and acknowledge your stage 2 complaint within five working days of receiving your escalation request.

We will investigate and respond to your stage 2 complaint within 20 working days of acknowledging it. If we need to extend this timescale for any reason, we will inform you of this and explain our reason for extending the timescale.

Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGO)

Once you have been through both stages of the complaints process, you may complain to the LGO if you feel we have not resolved your complaint. The ombudsman is not a further appeal. It looks at whether public bodies have followed the right steps when taking action or reaching a decision.

The ombudsman decides whether it can and should investigate complaints. For example, the ombudsman may decide not to investigate your complaint if you have not been significantly personally affected by the issue you are raising. You can find out more information about what complaints the ombudsman may consider on the LGO website.

Enquiries from the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman will be co-ordinated and responded to by the council’s Information Governance Team.

In cases where the ombudsman has recommended redress, we are committed to following the advice and timescales of the ombudsman to the best of our ability.

Contacting the LGO:

• LGO website
• Phone: 0300 061 0614

Housing Ombudsman

Once you have been through both stages of the complaints process, a complaint about social housing (landlord/tenant issues) may be referred to the Housing Ombudsman if you feel we have not resolved your complaint. A complaint must be referred to the Housing Ombudsman within 12 months from the date of our stage 2 response.

Contacting the Housing and Social Care Ombudsman:

• Housing Ombudsman website
• Phone: 0300 111 3000

Remedies for justified complaints

Section 92 of the Local Government Act 2000 gives councils powers to remedy injustice arising from maladministration. The purpose of this power is to ensure that the complainant is put back into the position they would have been in before the problem occurred.

The council will only provide remedies or compensation where the complainant has suffered injustice as a result of maladministration.

The council aims, as far as possible, to put the complainant in the position they would have been in before the maladministration occurred. Any remedy offered will reflect the impact on the individual as a result of any fault identified. Financial compensation will only be paid as a last resort.

Each case will be considered on its own merits in the light of the particular circumstances. Where a complainant has sustained loss or suffering, the council may consider providing a free service (such as a voucher) or financial compensation.

Each case will be evaluated in terms of impact: low, medium or major.

Service managers have authority to agree a remedy for low-impact complaints.

Overall authority is delegated to the Head of Insight, Communities and Governance (in conjunction with the Monitoring Officer) who will evaluate medium and major impact complaints and determine whether an injustice has been caused as a result of maladministration.

We will not consider financial compensation in the following circumstances:

• any matter settled via an insurance claim
• any settlement agreed via court proceedings
• where there is a specific statutory process of remedy open to the complainant, such as the parking appeals process
• where the amount of the award calculated would be less than £50 (instead, we would consider another form of benefit in kind, such as vouchers)

Exceptions to these circumstances:

• we may pay compensation to settle a claim where it is cost-effective for the council to do so

A complaint remedy or financial compensation payment would be ex gratia and would not represent an admission of liability. It is also important to note that compensation will not be paid where disadvantage has been caused entirely by a third party or by the actions of the complainant.

Efforts will be made to ensure that, as far as possible, broadly similar complaints, if justified, receive broadly comparable remedies.

Monitoring and reporting

Complaints will be monitored and reported on a bi-annual basis. The reports are available on the council’s website.

Unreasonable and unreasonably persistent contacts

The council has a separate Unreasonable and Unreasonably Persistent Customer Contact Policy. This has been developed to ensure the council is proportionate and fair in the way it defines this type of customer contact and in the manner it deals with it.