I Wish To Make A Complaint - January/February 2023 Edition

Receiving an email that starts with the words “I wish to make a complaint about…” is enough to strike fear into the heart of even the most experienced clerk. However, councils are public bodies that provide services to members of the public, and it is virtually impossible to get everything right all of the time. Complaints are inevitable, and so every council should ensure that they have appropriate procedures for dealing with them. If your council has never received a complaint, one will be along shortly.

The first thing for a clerk when receiving a complaint is to not panic. If the complaint has arrived by email, read it, and then go and make a cup of tea. When you come back, read it again. Then read it a third time, slowly and carefully. Try to get to the nub of the issue. Maybe copy and paste the email into Word and highlight significant sentences and key words. A complaint can be scattergun, even incoherent, so it is important to sift out the wheat from the chaff.

The next step is to ascertain the nature of the complaint and decide whether the council has agency or jurisdiction to handle it. A council’s complaints procedure deals with complaints about a service that the council provides, or something that the council has done, or not done. It cannot handle complaints from or about staff, which should be processed through the council’s grievance and disciplinary procedures, and it cannot handle complaints about councillors, which should be referred to the Code of Conduct complaints procedure. Sometimes a complaint may contain multiple strands, which need to be separated and sent down the appropriate route.

Having ascertained that a complaint is about a service that the council provides, or something that the council has done, or not done, it should be processed in accordance with a written procedure that has been formally adopted by the council. It is important to adhere to the procedure. Do what it says, and only what it says. Try to avoid “helpful” councillors going outside the procedure, even if they think that them “having a quite word” with the complainant might “smooth things over”. It rarely works and can make an otherwise manageable situation much worse.

It is a good idea to have a complaint form for members of the public to use. Even if a complaint submitted in an ordinary email is quite clear it is a good idea to ask the complainant to resubmit the complaint using the form, which can then capture all the salient information. It also gives the complainant an opportunity to reconsider making a complaint in the first place. A complainant should not be forced to use the form to submit their complaint, but point out that if they use the form, it will help the council to respond most appropriately to the complaint.

Another reason for having a form is that an anonymous complaint should be rejected, and if someone has only sent an email, and all you have is the email address, then you really have no idea of the identity of the complainant. A name and address are really required, and ideally a telephone number and email address too. The form can provide the complainant with the option of the complaint being handled confidentially, but that is a very different thing to a complaint being made anonymously.

A good complaints procedure should provide for swift and informal resolution where possible, and so should delegate responsibility for responding to most complaints to the clerk, who is an objective, professional, and dispassionate officer. There should then be an option for the complainant to escalate the matter to a Complaints Committee if they are not satisfied with the response from the clerk. It should also provide for the complainant to go straight to the Complaints Committee (by submitting the complaint to the chair instead of the clerk) if they think that the clerk may be conflicted.

Consequently, the council should have a standing committee for handling complaints. The function could be included in the terms of reference of an existing committee, or a dedicated Complaints Committee could be established, perhaps with ex officio membership, e.g., chair, vice chair, and Internal Controls Councillor. Whatever the structure, the important thing is to have it in place ready. The worst time for a council to think about who should be handling a serious complaint is when it receives one.

The complaint will either be upheld or dismissed. The outcome should be communicated to the complainant within the timescales specified in the Complaints Procedure. The outcome should be concise, objective, and clear. If the complaint was upheld, offer an apology that the council got it wrong on this occasion and, more importantly, explain what remedial action the council is going to take. Complainants are often satisfied that their complaint has been listened to, that the council is going to learn from it, and that they have made a difference. If the complaint is dismissed, state why clearly but concisely.

A complaint response should be assertive. Never passive, never aggressive.

The jurisdiction of the Local Government Ombudsman does not, at the time of writing, extend to parish and town councils, so having exhausted the council’s complaints procedure, if a complainant remains dissatisfied their only recourse is to the High Court, and this should be set out in the Complaints Procedure.

Complainants with legitimate and valid complaints should be treated with fairness and respect, but no council should feel that it is under any obligation to expose itself or its staff or members to intimidation, bullying or threatening behaviour from a complainant. The Complaints Procedure should include a section or appendix on unreasonable complainant behaviour that sets out examples of complainant behaviour that will not be tolerated. In extremis a complainant may have their access to the council restricted or even terminated.

Northants CALC has developed a sample complaints procedure for member councils to consider. Word and PDF copies are available at https://bit.ly/3HcGgDQ. Councils that do not currently have a written complaints procedure, or have not reviewed their procedure for several years, are advised to consider adopting the sample procedure.

When handling complaints, try to remember that each one is an opportunity to improve the council and enhance its reputation. A good council cares about its residents and its reputation with those residents. Nine out of ten disgruntled residents will never share their dissatisfaction directly with you but will find a way to spread the bad word about the council everywhere else. A bad reputation isn’t something upon which a council can build its long-term success, so turning complainants into satisfied customers is a rare opportunity and one that should be taken full advantage of.