Complaints

What is a complaint?
Complaints give us the chance to put things right. A complaint can be about:

Telling us that you are dissatisfied with a service provided by the council, or telling us about a failure in service provision, can help us to stop making the same mistakes again and help us to improve our services.

What is not a complaint?
Ealing Council delivers a huge range of services.  From time-to-time things do not go according to plan.  When a service you expected has not happened, we need to know so that we can put this right. Some of these failures can be rectified quickly without escalation to the formal complaint process. For further information and contact details on our services please refer to the A-Z of council services. 

Complaints procedure:

How do I complain?
Please contact the service you are complaining about and give the details. If you would like some help, then they will assist you.

It would help us if you have the following information ready for your complaint:

How long will it take?

  1. We will acknowledge all complaints within four working days either in writing or via email.
  2. We will endeavour to resolve all complaints within 10 working days.
  3. If we cannot resolve a complaint within 10 working days, a holding letter or email will be despatched by the service:
    i. advising you of the delay,
    ii. the reasons for the delay; and where possible, an estimated time for a full reply

What happens if I’m not happy with the response?

Informal stage
If you are already dealing with a council officer or you know which service to contact, you may wish to raise an issue by telephone, email, in writing, or in person. Often, matters can be resolved quickly at this stage. If you are unsure about which part of the council is responsible, please telephone our main switchboard on (020) 8825 5000.

Stage 1
If you are unhappy about the response to your initial contact, you should tell the officer that you have been dealing with that you wish to make a formal complaint. Stage 1 complaints are dealt with by the relevant service head - find this information on the service head contact list   (word).  Your complaint will be acknowledged within four days and you should receive a full reply within 10 working days*.

If you are complaining about the way in which a particular officer has dealt with you, your complaint will be looked into by a third party. Your complaint will be acknowledged within four days and you should receive a full reply within 10 working days*.

Stage 2
If you are dissatisfied with the response to stage 1, let us know and we will escalate your complaint to stage 2 so that the relevant service director can respond - find this information on the service director contact list (word).  Your complaint will be investigated in detail and you will be provided with a full reply within 10 working days*.

Stage 3
If you are still unhappy about the issue, let us know and the complaint will be escalated to our chief executive, Darra Singh, who will review your complaint and respond within a further 10 working days*. Email: ChiefExecutive@ealing.gov.uk 

*Some complaints can be complicated and may take longer than 10 days to resolve. If we cannot give a full reply in 10 working days, we will let you know why, what actions are being taken, and give you an expected date when we can respond.

What if I'm still not satisfied?
If you remain dissatisfied with the outcome after stage 3 of the process, and you wish to take the matter further, you can contact the Local Government Ombudsman who is an independent authority who can investigate issues causing injustice to the person who has complained.

Contact:
The Local Government Ombudsman
10th Floor Millbank Tower
Millbank
London  SW1P 4QP
Tel: (020) 7217 4620
Email: enquiries.london@lgo.org.uk
Fax: (020) 7217 4621
Website: www.lgo.org.uk

Are all complaints handled the same way?
Nearly all. There are, however, separate arrangements for dealing with social care, schools, parking and vehicle fines, planning applications, and housing/council tax benefits. If you are unhappy with a decision about these services the letter notifying you of the decision should explain how to complain.

Please note:
Some services have statutory external timeframes for complaints resolution that they work to (e.g. Children Act 1989, NHS Community Care Act 1989).  These timeframes are usually longer than our own corporate standards. These services: