Make a complaint

Have you ever felt unhappy or dissatisfied with a service you've received from us? Unfortunately, there are times when things go wrong, and as part of our commitment to high-quality services we are making sure that we listen to your complaints.

We define a complaint as 'An expression of dissatisfaction, however made, about the standard of service, actions or lack of action by the organisation, its own staff, or those acting on its behalf, affecting an individual or group of individuals.'

All complaints are important to us because they tell us what you think of our services. We know there is always room to improve and so we want to make every effort to put things right as quickly as possible.

Other concerns about our services

Faults and service requests

Not all concerns are handled as ‘complaints’, for example a faulty streetlight, graffiti, an abandoned car or a missed bin collection are faults or service requests and are handled quickly outside of the complaints process.

Separate rights of appeal

Some complaints may fall under an alternative statutory appeal or tribunal process.

If you wish to appeal or challenge a decision, please go to the appropriate link listed below:

Antisocial behaviour

Antisocial behaviour should be reported to the police or your housing association. There is a separate procedure for reporting antisocial behaviour on a council estate. Visit our antisocial behaviour reporting page for more information.

Other procedures

The complaints procedure for certain other services, schools and Councillors are different to the rest of the Council. Please use the following links:

If you want to complain about a data protection matter (other than a data breach) you should contact the Data Protection Officer at dpo@richmondandwandsworth.gov.uk.

How to make a complaint

To make a complaint, please use the online form below.

Make a complaint

How we deal with corporate complaints

We will normally only consider complaints about things which happened in the past 12 months. However, in some cases we may be able to consider complains outside of this period.

In all cases we aim to acknowledge your complaint within 2 working days at both stage 1 and stage 2.

Stage 1 - Investigation

  • We aim to send you a response within 20 working days or 10 working days for housing complaints that have appeal rights to the Housing Ombudsman - if we cannot reply within this time, we will let you know the reason why
  • We will tell you who is dealing with your complaint and when you can expect to get a response
  • A service manager will investigate your stage 1 complaint
  • If you are not happy with our response, we will listen to your concerns

If you are not satisfied with our stage 1 response you should contact the person named in your stage 1. Try to let us know within 20 working days if you wish to escalate your complaint to stage 2.

Stage 2 - Review

  • We aim to send you a response to stage 2 within 25 working days or 20 working days for housing complaints that have appeal rights to the Housing Ombudsman - if we cannot reply within this time, we will let you know why, and when you can expect to get a response
  • A senior manager will review the stage 1 response, and then write to you with the decision for stage 2. You will be provided with information at the end of the stage 2 about your rights to take your complaint to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman or to the Housing Ombudsman Service if you are not satisfied with the final response.

View the Corporate Complaints Policy for full details.

We currently have a separate Corporate Complaints Policy for Housing where appeal rights are to the Housing Ombudsman. 

Complain to the Ombudsman

We will try our best to resolve your problem, but if you are still unhappy you can complain to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman or the Housing Ombudsman depending on the service the complaint refers to.

They are independent services and can investigate to see if a local authority has acted unfairly or if you have been caused an injustice.

You can contact either Ombudsman service at any time, but you will normally be asked to complete both stages of our complaints procedure first.

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman
PO Box 4771
Coventry
CV4 0EH

Telephone: 0300 061 0614

Lines are open as follows (except public holidays):

  • Mondays and Wednesdays - 1 to 4pm
  • Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays - 10am to 4pm

Website: https://www.lgo.org.uk/

Housing Ombudsman Service

Housing Ombudsman Service
PO Box 152
Liverpool
L33 7WQ

Telephone: 0300 111 3000

Website: https://www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk

Anonymous complaints

We take all complaints seriously and accepts anonymous complaints through all methods of communication. We will ensure these are passed to the relevant services to investigate and undertake any identified actions. However, due to the anonymous nature of such complaints, we will be unable to provide a response unless a contact email or postal address is provided.

Unreasonable behaviour

We are committed to delivering excellent service to all our residents, but we know we cannot always get everything right first time. We understand and accept there may be times when we fall below our usual high standards. In those circumstances, we want to hear from you. If you make a complaint, we will do our best to resolve the issue as quickly as we can.

If you become angry or impatient with our staff whilst making  a complaint, or are unreasonably persistent in your contact, we reserve the right to make use of our policy on Unreasonable Complainant Behaviour. 

Annual report

View our 2022-23 Corporate Complaints report.

Privacy

For information on why we collect personal information, how it is used and shared, how long it is kept, how we protect it and the legal basis for collecting it, see our privacy notice.

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Updated: 03/04/2024