Complaints

Exclusions

On occasion, there may be things we can not consider with the complaints procedure. Examples of this are below:

• Anonymous complaints
• Where a court has made, is making or is about to make a determination on the specifics of a complaint or matters that are subject to litigation and/or have already been before a court/tribunal.
• Matters for which statutory appeal bodies or tribunals have been established - e.g., parking fines.
• Complaints where investigation(s) into the subject matter have previously taken place and have been concluded.
• Issues raised via surveys and customer feedback requests.
• Complaints from one resident about another. If appropriate, these will be dealt with through our housing anti-social behaviour policy, but a complaint will be accepted should a resident be dissatisfied with how their case was handled.
• Matters already being dealt with by an Ombudsman service.
• Issues dealt with by another authority, such as Hampshire County Council.
• Liability or personal injury claims.
• A request for an appeal or review of a statutory decision.
• Cases where the Council has taken a decision in a proper manner, or for an explanation of a decision.
• Complaints received more than 12 months after the event/concern/issue took place, or 24 months of legal completion for property sales.
• FOI/EIR Request
• Data Protection concerns

Our procedure

For Council services and all rental tenant complaints, our complaints procedure has two stages. When you raise a complaint at either stage, you will be given a case reference number. If you have purchased your home from us and your complaint is about the sale process or the property, there is one stage. You will also receive a case reference number.

All timescales quoted are from the time the complaint is received, or from the date a response/update is sent.

Stage One – Council Services and Rental Tenants:

• You will be given a case reference number when you make a complaint.
• We will acknowledge your complaint within five working days. We will set out our understanding of the complaint and the outcomes you are seeking.
• We will inform you which ombudsman is responsible for reviewing and handling the matters raised.
• If we are unsure about any aspect of the complaint, we will ask you for clarification.
• Your complaint will be investigated and responded to in writing within ten working days (after acknowledgement), so not normally longer than 15 working days from when your complaint is received.
• We will address all points raised in your complaint and provide clear reasons for any decisions, referring to the relevant policy, law and good practice where appropriate.
• Should we need an extension to this timescale due to the complexity of the complaint, we will inform you of this as soon as possible. You will be provided with an explanation for the delay, the date you will receive a response (which will usually be no more than a further 10 working days) and contact details for the relevant Ombudsman.
• If you raise any additional complaints during the investigation, these will be incorporated into the stage one response if they are relevant, and the stage one response has not been issued. Where the stage one response has been issued, or it would unreasonably delay the response, the complaint will be logged as a new complaint.
• Any required corrective actions will not delay the complaint response.

Stage Two – Council Services and Rental Tenants:

• Should you feel that your complaint has not been resolved to your satisfaction at stage one, you can request it to be progressed to stage two.
• You will be given a case reference number when you submit your complaint.
• You will receive an acknowledgement within five working days of your escalation request being received. We will set out our understanding of the complaint and the outcomes you are seeking. If we are unsure about any aspect of the complaint, we will ask you for clarification.
• Your complaint will be investigated by another council officer, and you will receive a final written response within 20 working days of your stage two complaint being acknowledged, so not normally longer than 25 working days from when your stage two complaint was received. We will address all points raised in your complaint and provide clear reasons for any decisions, referring to the relevant policy, law and good practice where appropriate.
• Should we need an extension to this timescale due to the complexity of the complaint, we will inform you of this as soon as possible. You will be provided with an explanation for the delay, the date you will receive a response (which will be no more than a further 20 working days) and contact details for the relevant Ombudsman.
• We will only escalate a complaint to stage two once it has completed stage one and at the request of the customer.
• Any required corrective actions will not delay the complaint response.

Homes sales and purchased properties only

• We will acknowledge all complaints within five calendar days of the complaint initiation date. The complaint initiation date (CID) is the first working day after a complaint is received. Thus, if a complaint is received on a Monday, the CID is the following Tuesday. If a complaint is received on a Saturday, the CID will be the following Monday (excluding public holidays).
• We will investigate your concerns and send a response which details our proposed pathway to resolution within ten calendar days of the complaint initiation date. This will explain how we plan to resolve the issue, along with the steps and anticipated timescales.
• We will send a full complaint assessment response no later than thirty calendar days. If the complaint has been resolved, this will confirm what steps were taken. If a solution is still underway, the response will detail what has caused the delay, and an anticipated date for resolution.
• In the unlikely event that the complaint remains unresolved after 56 calendar days of the complaint initiation date, we will send a further response to provide information on what has caused the delay, what are the next steps and the anticipated date for resolution. We will also keep you updated no less than every thirty days until the matter is resolved.

Final Response

When our investigations and response are complete, we will close the complaint. Our final response will include the following:

• The complaint stage (if applicable)
• Our understanding of the complaint
• The decision on the complaint
• The reasons for any decisions made
• The details of any remedy offered to put things right
• Details of any outstanding actions
• Details of how to escalate the matter to the Ombudsman if you remain dissatisfied

If you are not satisfied with our explanation or suggested resolution following Stage Two, you may contact the the relevant Ombudsman for your complaint.