Complaints

If you are not happy with the way you have been treated by the Council, be it in the response of a Council Officer or the provision of a service, then we would like you to let us know. We will do everything we can to rectify the situation, as long as the complaint is well-founded and within our powers to deal with.

There are three stages to our complaints procedure. At each stage, if the matter is not immediately resolved to the customer's satisfaction, we will send them within 5 working days a written acknowledgement with contact details of the person who will investigate the complaint. We will try to reply fully in writing within 10 working days but, if we are unable to do so, we will contact the customer to explain the delay and how long it will take to respond.

Stage 1

The customer should speak to a member of staff, or telephone, or write to the person they have been dealing with, explaining their complaint. If the customer prefers not to contact that person they can contact their manager. If the matter is not immediately resolved to the customer's satisfaction, we will send a copy of our Comments, Compliments and Complaints leaflet with our Stage 1 response and advise them how to appeal.

We will not consider a complaint more than three months after the alleged incident took place.

Stage 2

If the customer is not satisfied with the response at Stage 1 they may contact the head of the service they are complaining about. The Service Head will investigate the complaint further or delegate the matter to a manager not involved in the original investigation.

We will not consider a complaint at Stage 2 of this procedure if the customer does not request a further investigation within three months of the completion of Stage 1.

Stage 3

If the customer is still not satisfied, they may ask the Chief Executive to review their complaint. They should say why they are not satisfied and what they think should be done to put things right.

We will not consider a complaint at Stage 3 of this procedure if the customer does not request a further investigation within three months of the completion of Stage 2.

How to send us a complaint

Customers can send us complaints by:

• Visiting one of our offices and speaking to a member of staff
  
• Telephoning the customer services centre on 01903 239999, the Help Point on 01903 221234 or by Minicom on 01903-204500.
  
• Completing the form in our Comments, Compliments and Complaints leaflet (see below) and sending it to the following address:
  
  
  • The Chief Executive
    Worthing Borough Council
    Freepost BR1575
    Town Hall
    Chapel Road
    Worthing
    West Sussex
    BN11 1SB
    
    
• Fax: 01903 236552
• On-line: Alternatively, you use the Compliments, Comments and Complaints On-line Form here:
  

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