Unfortunately, we don’t always get things right, if your unhappy with any part of our service please let us know so we can put things right.
We are committed to making it easy for anyone who is unhappy with a service, or experience provided by the Council, to tell us about it. Where customers require additional support, we will endeavour to provide a service that seeks to meet the needs of a particular individual or household. If you would like support to make your complaint or have a representative act on your behalf, please let us know.
To ensure we respond to your complaint as quickly as possible, let’s make sure we are sending the information to the right department.
Complaints
Stage 1
A complaint will be progressed under Stage 1 of our formal complaint’s procedure when:
- We can’t resolve the problem informally.
- You tell us that you want to make a formal complaint.
- We believe it is necessary to use the formal procedure to resolve or respond to the complaint.
Complaints at Stage 1 will be investigated by an officer and reviewed by the relevant Service Manager, or appropriate Manager.
You will receive an acknowledge of your complaint within 5 working days, and we aim to provide you with a full response within 10 working days. If this is not possible, we will contact you to let you know why there is a delay and agree together an acceptable response time.
Stage 2
If you are not happy with our response or how your complaint was handled, you can ask us to review your complaint.
We need to know which part of the complaint you feel wasn’t handled well, and what action you would like to be taken.
Stage 2 complaints will be investigated by an independent Senior Officer appointed by the Chief Executive, who will review how your complaint was dealt with.
We aim to respond within 20 working days of receipt of your request, the Senior Officer will write to you with the outcome of the investigation and any actions resulting from it.
The Housing Ombudsman
If you feel that you are still not satisfied with our response you can appeal through the Housing Ombudsman service, the Local Government Ombudsman or your local MP.
- The Housing Ombudsman Service (external link) investigates complaints about housing organisations, the service is free, independent, and impartial. You can access the Housing Ombudsman Service throughout your complaint for impartial advice and support.
- The Local Government Ombudsman (external link) is an independent body, whose purpose is to provide impartial and prompt investigation and resolution of complaints of injustice through maladministration by local authorities.
Note: you can contact the Ombudsman at any time during the complaints process
You can also make a complaint by;
- Emailing the Complaints team
- Write to us at the Complaints and Information team, PO Box 100, Wigan, WN1 3DS
- Call into any public Council office.