Kirklees' complaints procedure

• We want to hear your views.
• How to make a complaint.
• How will we deal with your complaint?
• If you are still not happy .

We want to hear your views

We want to hear your views about the services we provide. Although we work hard to give you the best possible service we realise things can go wrong and we can make mistakes. We need to know when this happens so we can put things right and learn to do things differently in the future. We see your comments and complaints as an opportunity to help us improve the services we provide.

If you have any complaints about the council please let us know. We would also like to hear from you if you have any comments or compliments.

You can make a complaint in the way that best suits you- in person, by phone, by letter, by email or by using the online comments, compliments and complaints form. We also have a complaints leaflet which you can obtain from most of our public offices.
If you can’t complain yourself ask someone to do it for you, such as a relative, friend or neighbour.

How will we deal with your complaint?

There are three stages to our complaints procedure but we hope that most problems can be sorted out early and quickly.

Stage 1

If you have a complaint you should contact the person or office who provides the service you are unhappy with. They are in the best position to put things right quickly. See the list of complaint contact officers for each service.

 If you are not sure which service to contact please contact:
 

Our staff aim to deal with your complaint fairly and informally.  Many problems can be put right straight away, if this is not possible we aim to give you a response within 6 working days. If we cannot reply to you within 6 days we will tell you why and tell you when you can expect us to contact you again.

Stage 2

If you are unhappy with the way we handled your complaint tell the person you have dealt with that you wish to have the complaint looked at by the head of that service.  The head of service will arrange for your complaint to be investigated and we will aim give you a written reply within 15 working days. If we need longer to look at your complaint we will let you know.

Stage 3

If you are still unhappy about the way we have handled your complaint you can ask the council's Corporate Customer Standards Officer to review it.The Corporate Customer Standards Officer will contact you and tell you how long it will take to deal with your request.The officer will write to you after carrying out the review.

If you are still not happy

If you are still not happy after we have investigated and reviewed your complaint then you can ask the Local Government Ombudsman to look at your complaint.