Complaints, comments and suggestions

Here is our customer feedback form for complaints, comments and suggestions about St Edmundsbury Borough Council's services. You can complete and submit the form online, or if you can prefer you can download a printed copy of the Customer feedback form (PDF 128Kb).

Please note: Complaints are fully investigated and responded to within 15 working days.

To improve our services we need to know what you think of them

We hope that we mostly get it right first time - but sometimes we don't. So if you are unhappy with our services, or the way we have treated you, please let us know. The sooner you tell us the sooner we can put things right.

Of course, we'd also love to hear from you if we're doing well or if you have suggestions for improvements.

We can learn from complaints and comments so we can improve our services. A complaint lets us know if you think we:

• have done something wrong or badly;
• haven't done something we should have done; or
• have been unfair or treated you badly.

If you want to report something, such as a noisy neighbour or wasps' nest in your loft, rather than make a complaint about our services please contact the relevant department (if you're not sure, call our general enquiries number). We will not use our complaints process where there is an appeals procedure within the council to an independent tribunal, or a legal remedy such as a planning appeal.

Many complaints can be solved with a telephone call to the person you've been dealing with, so we suggest you try this first. Our staff try to give the best service, but mistakes can happen and we are keen to sort out any problems.

How the procedure works

If you have tried and cannot solve the problem with the service directly you can use our complaints process. There are TWO simple steps to the complaints procedure. We aim to deal with most complaints in Step 1, but if you remain unhappy with the first response you should take your complaint to Step 2.

Step 1

If you are dissatisfied with any part of our service or wish to point out a fault, you can make a complaint by:

• filling in the online customer Feedback form or printed Customer feedback form (PDF128Kb)
• phoning the Complaints Line on 01284 757031 (answer phone outside office hours);
• writing to:

FREEPOST ANG 4025
Corporate Complaints
St Edmundsbury Borough Council
Borough Offices
Angel Hill
Bury St Edmunds
Suffolk IP33 1XB

• or by emailing strategy.performance@stedsbc.gov.uk

You will receive a response within five working days of receipt of your complaint (or within one working day if you use the online form or email). This will provide the name of the person dealing with the complaint. The response will either explain fully how the situation has been handled or we will let you know that further investigation is necessary and tell you when you can expect a full reply.

All complaints should usually be fully investigated within 15 working days.

Step 2

If you are not happy with the response to your complaint please contact us again, by any of the methods outlined above, setting out any relevant dates and previous contact you have had with us.

If at the end of our complaints procedure you are unhappy with our response, you can take your complaint to the Local Government Ombudsman.

The Local Government Ombudsman is an independent person who investigates allegations of maladministration causing injustice to the person who has complained. The Ombudsman investigates complaints about most council matters including housing, planning, education, social services, and council tax. The Ombudsman who deals with this council is at:

10th Floor
Millbank Tower
Millbank
London
SW1P 4QP         

Phone: 020 7217 4620 Fax: 020 7217 4621

The Local Government Ombudsman has a leaflet called Complaint about the council? How to complain to the Local Government Ombudsman. You can get a copy by telephoning or writing to the address above, or you can download it from the Ombudsman's website at www.lgo.org.uk

If you have an enquiry about the Local Government Ombudsman's service you can telephone their Adviceline on 0845 602 1983.

If at the end of our complaints procedure you are unhappy with our response, you can take your complaint to the Local Government Ombudsman.

We want to improve!

Our customers' satisfaction is very important to us so we will closely look at complaints, comments and suggestions to see if there are any recurring topics. In this way we can make sure we act quickly to keep improving our service.