Comments and Complaints
Clackmannanshire Council is committed to providing the best services possible to its customers. That is why we have set up a Comments and Complaints procedure to find out what you think about our services. Listening to your views will help us provide a better service.
Council-wide procedure
Our comments or complaints procedure can be used to log comments or complaints relating to every service throughout the Council:
Online comments and complaints form
Specific Service related Complaints Procedures
If you have a specific complaint relating to either Social Services or Roads and Transportation, you can, if you wish, choose to log your complaint directly with them through their individual complaints procedures:
Social Work Services
Social Services have a legal obligation to have an established complaints procedure which is similar to the corporate comments and complaints procedure. Leaflets are available in council offices, or you can refer to our web page or make contact with our complaints officer as detailed below:
Roads and Transportation
If you have a specific complaint to make about roads and/or transportation, you can log your complaint directly with our Roads and Transportation service through our
What to do if you want to make a comment or complaint
Either write or telephone the relevant service (brief descriptions of each service's functions and links to their web pages are detailed below).
If writing to us, please state which service you are writing to and use our freepost address, which means you do not need a stamp.
- Freepost TY805
Clackmannanshire Council
Greenfield
ALLOA
FK10 2AD
Tel: 01259 450000 (Contact Centre)
e: customerservice@clacks.gov.uk
Please provide us with as much detail as possible, including names, places, dates and let us know how we might put matters right.
If this is not convenient, you may call at any local office, where a member of staff will be happy to help you, or use our on-line Comments and Complaints form.
For full details of the Comments and Complaints Procedure, please see our Corporate Policy.
All complaints received will be given equal importance, regardless of which method of contact you choose to use to let us know about your complaint.
We would like you to be happy with our services and are continually striving to improve provision, please help us to make that happen. Your views are important to us.
What will happen next?
1st Stage
When we receive your complaint, this will be logged as a first stage complaint.
We will make every attempt to have the complaint resolved speedily. If your complaint needs further investigation, we will send you a written acknowledgement and a reply normally within 10 working days. If it will take longer to find out all the facts, we will keep you informed of the progress.
The progress of your complaint will be monitored by a nominated Monitoring Officer for the particular Service about which you are complaining.
Please note that Social Services have separate legal obligations relating to complaints. For more information, you can view the Social Services Complaints procedure.
2nd Stage
If you are still not satisfied
Once you have received our reply outlining our findings, if you are still not satisfied with the response, you may make a request to escalate your complaint to a second stage. This means your complaint will be reviewed by a Service Director.
As with the first stage, a second stage complaint will be acknowledged and, where possible, a target time of 10 working days for a response. Where a response within the timescale is not achievable then we will explain why and give an expected date of reply.
3rd Stage
If you are still dissatisfied with the Council's findings you can escalate your complaint further to stage three for a review by the Chief Executive. You may write to the Chief Executive at:
- The Chief Executive
Clackmannanshire Council
Greenfield
Alloa
FK10 2AD
e: chiefexecutiveservice@clacks.gov.uk
Your complaint will be acknowledged and a review of your complaint and actions of the Service will be undertaken. Any complaint reaching this stage will have timescale of 21 days to respond. Again, should this timesale not be possible we will advise you as to when you can expect a reply and the reasons as to the delay. Such delays might be due to the complexity of the complaint or because there are third parties involved with whom correspondence is necessary in order to conduct a full review.
Scottish Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO)
Once you have given the Council an opportunity to respond to your complaint and, if you are still not satisfied with the responses you have received from the Council, you will be advised that you have a right to contact the Ombudsman, officially called the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman based at 4 Melville Street, Edinburgh, EH3 7NS.
The Scottish Public Services Ombudsman provides an open, accountable and accessible public services complaints system.
Before taking any action, the Ombudsman will normally expect that you have contacted the Council about your complaint, and that the Council has been given ample opportunity to deal with and resolve the issue by going through the complaints process above. The Ombudsman will also only look into complaints made:
- within 12 months of the date you first knew about the problem about which you are complaining.
- that are not currently going, or have been, through Court proceedings.
You can contact the SPSO by:
- Write:
- Freepost EH641
Edinburgh
EH3 0BR
- Freepost EH641
- Tel: 0800 377 7330
- Fax: 0800 377 7331
- Text: 0790 049 4372
- e: ask@spso.org.uk
- Web: www.spso.org.uk
It will be helpful if you keep copies of all your correspondence.
SPSO Report for Clackmannanshire 2008/09
You can view the Ombudsman's letter to all Local Authorities in Scotland which details the contact each had with the SPSO in the year 2008/09.
Comments and complaints explained
Comments
Let us know your comment if
- you have received exceptionally good service;
- you have a suggestion on how to improve our service;
- we have done something wrong;
- we have not done something we should have done;
- you have been treated unfairly.
We would like to know, because
- if we have done well, we would like to promote the same good practice throughout the council services;
- if we have been at fault, we would like to put things right and make sure it doesn't happen again;
- if we have not been at fault, we will make sure you get a full explanation.
What is a complaint?
Complaints fall into different categories, eg
- the attitude of an employee of the Council or discrimination by an officer
- failure of an officer to provide a service at a standard expected by the Council
- delay in responding to an enquiry or a request for service
- failure to follow Council's policies, rules or procedures
- a quality decision in which the Council is not providing Best Value
- a risk concerning Health and Safety issues
What is not a complaint?
- the first request for action or for a service
- a first request for information or explanation
- an appeal relating to a planning decision, a review request under Freedom of Information or other area where a formal statutory process already exists
Advice and assistance from electoral representatives
The Council's Comments and Complaints Procedure outlined does not impact on the right of every citizen to seek advice and assistance from their electoral representatives.
You have the right to seek advice from your
- Local Councillor
- Member of Parliament
- Member of the Scottish Parliament
- Member of the European Parliament
If you don't know who this is, you can find out by using the links above, ask at any Council office, or by contacting Member Services at the Council on telephone number 01259 452011.
