Comments, compliments and complaints

This complaints procedure applies to complaints about North Northamptonshire Council’s service delivery, including complaints about its staff. It does not apply to complaints about the conduct of Councillors, for which there is a separate procedure managed by the Monitoring Officer. Please also see separate information about complaints for children’s and adults’ social care. There are separate legal processes for dealing with those complaints.

Any complaints will be dealt with in accordance with our policies:

Process

Stage 1

We will acknowledge receipt of your complaint within three working days.

• The complaint will be investigated by a senior member of staff, who may ask you for more information in the course of dealing with your complaint.
• We will provide a written response within 20 working days. If this is going to take longer, we will contact you to let you know when you can expect to hear from us.

Stage 2

• If you are not satisfied with the outcome at Stage 1, you can ask for a review of your complaint. You must do this within 20 working days of the response you have received at Stage 1. This review will be carried out by an independent senior manager who will review the Stage 1 response and provide a written response to the Stage 2 complaint.
• We will acknowledge your Stage 2 complaint within three working days and tell you who will be conducting the review.
• We will provide a written response within 20 working days. If this is going to take longer, we will contact you to let you know when you can expect to hear from us.

If you are still unhappy

If you remain dissatisfied after Stages 1 and 2, you have the right to ask the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman to investigate the matter. The Ombudsman can investigate complaints about how the Council has done something or failed to do something. Whilst they do not usually criticise the merits of a decision which has been properly taken simply because someone may disagree with it, they will look at how a decision was made. The Ombudsman will not usually consider a complaint until the Council has had a chance to resolve the matter through its own procedure.

Their contact details are:
Website: www.lgo.org.uk/make-a-complaint 
Telephone: 0300 061 0614

For more detailed information about this procedure, how we deal with complaints and the processes that will not fall under this procedure, please see our Customer Comments, Compliments and Complaints Policy.

To see what we expect from you when you want make a complaint, there is information in our Unacceptable or Unreasonable Communications and Behaviour Policy.

We will:

• acknowledge your complaint within 3 working days of receiving it
• tell you who will be dealing with your complaint and how long it may take us to look into the situation
• keep you informed of how things are going and if things are likely to take longer than we agreed we will discuss this with you
• give you an opportunity to talk it through after we have responded if you are still not happy, and we will agree the best way forward

We are committed to delivering a high quality service to children, young people, their families and carers. Complaints and feedback are dealt with by West Northamptonshire Council for children and young people.

Sometimes we don’t get things right first time or you might feel that we could have given you a better service. We welcome everything you have to tell us, both ‘the good bits’ and the ‘bad bits’, so that we can continue to learn and improve.

If you're a child or young person you have rights about how you can give your feedback.

Contact us online

Give us feedback or make a complaint using our form.

Call or e-mail us

Call us on 0300 126 7000​. E-mail us at [email protected].

Write to us

Compliments, Comments and Complaints Team
West Northamptonshire Council
One Angel Square
Angel Street
Northampton
NN1 1ED

What happens next?

We will:

• acknowledge your complaint within 3 working days of receiving it
• tell you who will be dealing with your complaint and how long it may take us to look into the situation
• keep you informed of how things are going and if things are likely to take longer than we agreed we will discuss this with you
• give you an opportunity to talk it through after we have responded if you are still not happy, and we will agree the best way forward

Most complaints are dealt with by our normal process but there are some exceptions:

• Penalty Charge Notice appeals - You can make an appeal about bus lane or parking PCNs online
• School travel appeals - If your application for transport is refused, you can appeal online
• Insurance claims - You can submit a Highways insurance claim online

Complaints about our Housing service are managed in line with the Housing Ombudsman Service's code of practice.

Process

Stage 1

We will acknowledge receipt of your complaint within 5 working days.

A senior member of staff will investigate and we may ask for more information.

We will provide a written response within 10 working days. If this is going to take longer, we will let you know.

Stage 2

If you are unhappy with our response, you can ask for a review. You should do this as soon as possible. We will acknowledge this within 5 working days.

An independent senior manager will investigate and provide a response within 20 working days. If this is going to take longer, we will let you know.

If you are still unhappy

If you are still unhappy, you can ask the Housing Ombudsman Service to investigate. Please do this as soon as you can - there is a time limit of 12 months.

Housing Ombudsman Service
PO Box 1484
Unit D
Preston
PR2 0ET

Email: [email protected]
Phone: 0300 111 3000