Making a complaint

You can make a complaint by visiting our Have your say online form.

If you would prefer to do this in writing, you can download and print off a copy of the form (see documents table below).

Completed forms should be sent to Customer Services, Plymouth City Council, Plymouth PL1 2AA.

We will write to you within three working days of receiving your complaint either to respond in full or acknowledge that we have received it.

We will investigate, if this is the first time you have complained about this matter, (we call this Stage One) a supervisor or team leader will look into what has happened and what can be done about it.

We will send a full response within 10 working days of receiving your complaint. After looking into what you have said we will tell you what we can do about it. Sometimes more complex complaints may take longer but we will keep you informed of progress.

Some types of complaint have to be dealt with under a different legal process. In this case we will pass your complaint on to the correct person and let you know. If your complaint is about a councillor you will need to read our How to complain about a councillor page. The process for this sort of complaint is different.

What happens next?

We may contact some people to ask if you were satisfied with how we handled your complaint. This is so that we can continue to learn from what you tell us and keep improving.

What if I don’t feel my complaint has been dealt with properly?

You can ask us to reconsider our decision. We call this a Stage Two complaint. A senior manager or a head of service will look at your complaint and may change the decision. If the decision stays the same we will explain why.

We will acknowledge your complaint and then send a full response within 25 working days of you asking us to reconsider. If it is going to take longer we will let you know.

What if I’m still not happy?

We hope your complaint is resolved before this stage is reached, but if you are unhappy with our response or feel we have failed to put it right you can complain to the Local Government Ombudsman.

The Ombudsman is an independent organisation which investigates complaints about councils.

Look at the Local Government Ombudsman website or ask at any of the council’s enquiry desks for a leaflet.

If your complaint is about a Freedom of Information request you can complain to the Information Commissioner. Look at the Information Commissioner website.

Documents

To view these documents you might need to download some software. Visit our downloads page for more information.

Have your say form - a form to register your compliments, suggestions and complaints. File format Adobe Acrobat (pdf) - 250KB

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