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Your feedback and customer care
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Our customer care standards
We prioritise putting our customers first. We make the promise to put your needs at the heart of everything we do, and to treat people fairly and without bias.
Customer care is a council-wide priority. While we have a dedicated customer services team, which acts as the front face of the council for visitors and callers, customer care is embedded in our culture as a whole.
Our customer care standards clearly outline what you can expect from your experience with us – be that in person, over the phone or online.
Your feedback
We welcome your feedback and we use it, where possible, to help us improve future council services.
If you wish to provide general feedback about one of our services, officers or teams, please use our online form.
We want to hear from you when you think we have done a decent job but also when you feel we could have done better. You can be assured that you will be:
- Listened to
- Treated honestly, fairly, and politely
- Given help and advice as quickly as we can
- Your individual needs and right to privacy will be respected
- Kept informed about what is happening.
Every assistance will be given for those with specialist needs (e.g. interpreting services) to accommodate all those who may wish to provide feedback. Everyone will be
treated fairly, regardless of race, age, gender, disability, sexual orientation, or religious views.
Formal complaints
If you wish to provide general feedback about one of our services, including compliments then you can do this through your feedback.
We always aim to deliver our services in a way that meets expectations. However, we know that sometimes things can go wrong. We encourage you to tell us when this happens so that we can put it right and learn lessons to prevent it from happening again.
Our formal complaints policy outlines our approach for dealing with and responding to formal complaints.
Our policy reflects the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman’s Complaints Handling Code which can be found on their website.
Under the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman’s (LGSCO) Complaint Handling Code, a formal complaint is defined as:
“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”.
For example where:
- We have not responded to a service request or we have failed to deliver a service to you.
- The service we delivered did not meet your expectation.
- You were treated in an unprofessional manner.
There are some complaints that we are not able to investigate but if we are unable to, we will let you know and advise you what the correct process is.
Examples of the sort of issues not covered by our formal complaints procedure include:
- Day to day service requests or reporting faults (e.g. noise complaints, fly tipping, missed bins, etc.). These can be reported directly through our report it system or contact our customer services team on 01684 295010.
- Services that are not our responsibility. For example, Gloucestershire County Council services e.g. highways (pot holes, street lighting and on-street car parking), adult and children health and social care, educational provisions.
- Complaints about elected councillors – please visit our Councillors’ code of conduct page, contact the council’s monitoring officer on 01684 295010 or email customerservices@tewkesbury.gov.uk.
- Allegations of financial impropriety or criminal activity by the council. Please contact the council’s Section 151 Officer and/or an internal auditor, monitoring officer or Chief Executive. You can do this by emailing customerservices@tewkesbury.gov.uk.
- Complaints about national government policy.
- If you disagree with the way we have calculated your benefits entitlement, please visit the Benefits page.
- To appeal a licensing decision (premises, personal or taxi license), please visit the licensing appeal page or email licensing@tewkesbury.gov.uk.
- To appeal against food business inspections results.
- To appeal a planning application decision, the written decision notice will give details of the rights of appeal for the applicant. If you are unhappy with the decision but you are not an applicant, you have the right for a judicial review within six weeks from the date of the planning permission decision. Please visit the Planning page for more details. Further information can also be found here.
- To appeal a Homeseeker Plus application decision please refer to their separate appeal process.
- Complaints about councillors. Please contact our Monitoring Officer on 01684 295010 or email legalservices@onelegal.gov.uk.
- Allegations of financial impropriety. Please contact our Section 151 Officer on 01684 295010 or email finance@tewkesbury.gov.uk.
- Allegations of criminal activity or fraud. Please contact Internal Audit on governanceteam@tewkesbury.gov.uk or the Counter Fraud and Enforcement Unit on
fraud.referrals@cotswold.gov.uk. - Complaints about parish councillors.
- Whistleblowing concerns relating to a member of staff at Tewkesbury Borough Council. Please contact our Counter Fraud and Enforcement Unit on fraud.referrals@cotswold.gov.uk.
- Complaints about formal decisions taken by Council, committees or those delegated to staff.
Before using our formal complaints process, please try to contact the service or team at the council that has caused your dissatisfaction to see if an informal solution can be found. Alternatively, if you think it might be more appropriate to submit a comment or concern (comments and concerns are less formal, but we still take them seriously) then you can do this by completing the forms through our portal.
You can make a complaint to us in whichever way is easiest for you. Some of the easiest and quickest ways to make a formal complaint are:
• Using our online form through our self-service portal.
• Email us: customerservices@tewkesbury.gov.uk.
• Call us: 01684 295010.
• Write to us:
Complaints,
Tewkesbury Borough Council,
Public Services Centre,
Gloucester Road,
Tewkesbury,
GL20 5TT.
• Calling into our offices at the address above.
A complaint must be made within 12 months of the problem occurring, or within 12 months of you becoming aware of the issue. It is at the council’s discretion as to whether complaints made outside of this time limit are to be considered.
We treat all complaints with respect and in confidence. Any personal data gathered as part of a formal complaint will be handled in accordance with the council’s Data Protection Policy. We may share some personal data, where necessary, with third parties where it is appropriate for investigating and resolving a complaint.
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman have a ‘top tips for making a complaint’ video which can be found here: www.lgo.org.uk/make-a-complaint/top-tips-for-making-a-complaint
Many people feel daunted at the prospect of making a complaint. They may be unsure how to go about it, or how best to put their case forward.
You are able to ask a representative to liaise with us and deal with your complaint. In these cases, we will seek confirmation that they have the authority to do so before we share any information with them. You are also able to have representation, or be accompanied, at any meeting that may take place with the council as part of the complaint resolution.
Should you require assistance in submitting a complaint please contact our customer services team on 01684 295010.
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman have some top tips for making a complaint on their website. These can be found here.
To help us investigate your complaint we would ask you to try and provide as much detail as possible of the issue that has occurred. This includes timeframes if required.
We have two stages to our formal complaints process these are:
Stage one – investigation by the head of service or relevant service manager/ team leader
All formal complaints are logged onto our complaints system and provided with a unique reference number. The system is used for recording all actions taken during the complaint investigation. You will be given a unique reference, and we will send you an acknowledgement within five working days of receiving your complaint. If the complaint is received after 5pm, the timeframe will start from the next working day.
Please ensure your unique reference number is quoted on any correspondence you have with us in relation to your complaint.
A full investigation will take place by the investigating officer and a response will be sent to you within 10 working days of acknowledging your complaint. If we can’t do this, for example, if the investigation is complex or there are special circumstances, we’ll let you know why there’s a delay and how long it will take to provide a full response. This will be no longer than a further 10 working days, without good reason.
Stage two – investigation by an independent investigating officer
If you are not happy with our response, you can ask us to review your complaint again. You must do this within 30 calendar days from the date of our stage one response.
We will consider individual circumstances if a request is received outside of this time limit.
We will send you an acknowledgement within five working days of receiving your request to escalate to stage two. This will contain the name of the investigating officer, who will be different than the one who considered the complaint at stage one.
We aim to respond fully to your stage two request for a review as soon as possible and within 20 working days of acknowledging your stage two complaint.
If your request requires a lot of investigation, we’ll let you know why there’s a delay and how long it will take to provide a full response. This extension will be no longer than an additional 20 working days, unless there’s a good reason.
We really hope we can resolve any complaints you might have. However, if your complaint has progressed through both stages of our formal complaints procedure and you are still unhappy with our response or the action we have taken, you can ask the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) to review our investigation, which is an independent, impartial and free service. They can be contacted in the following ways:
- Online: www.lgo.org.uk/how-to-complain
- Or by telephone: 0300 0610614 or 0845 602 1983
(Calls to 03 numbers will cost no more than calls to national geographic numbers (starting 01 or 02) from both mobiles and landlines and will be included as part of any inclusive call minutes or discount schemes in the same way as geographic calls. Please note that calls may be recorded for training and quality purposes).
- Text: 0762 480 3014 to request a call back
- Alternatively, you can write to them:
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman
PO BOX 4771
Coventry
CV4 0EH
To investigate properly, we might need to share your complaint, including your contact details, with one of our partner organisations. Please read our privacy statement for more information.
The council regularly monitors its performance for complaints and on an annual basis produces a ‘Formal Complaints’ report. Alongside this the council receives an annual review letter from the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman. The most recent reports can be found on our performance page here.