Complaints Policy

This is the updated Complaints Handling policy for the Council, agreed by the Executive on 7 September 2025. 

Overview

The Council aims to always provide a high-quality, cost-effective services. However, we recognise that things can go wrong. If they do, we need to know so we can put things right and learn from them.

Complaints are therefore welcomed as they can help us improve service delivery and inform our policies.

What is a complaint?

A complaint is an expression of dissatisfaction, however made, about the standard of service, actions or lack of action by the Council, its employees, or contractors affecting a resident or group of residents.

The use of the word 'complaint' does not need to be included within communication for it to be treated as such, and anyone expressing dissatisfaction will be given the choice to make a complaint. 

Examples of a complaint include:

• A delay in taking action without good reason. 
• A failure to provide a service.
• Mistakes in the way a decision has been taken.
• Not following the law or the Council's own policies.
• Broken promises.
• Giving incorrect or misleading information.
• Bias or unfair discrimination.
• Rude, unhelpful or inappropriate behaviour by staff. 
• Poor communication. 
• The conduct of staff when delivering the service.

Making a complaint to the Council will not prevent, stall or impact on actions that we should take to resolve any immediate issues. 

Some Council services are provided by third-party operators under contract. Examples of this include operation of the Airport, Entertainment Venue and leisure centres and responsibility for some of the repairs and maintenance to our housing stock.  

Depending on the contractual arrangements, complaints may be handled solely by those contractors through their complaints process where we have stipulated this in contract. The Council expects they will have a two-stage approach to handling complaints to mirror the Council's process. Further information is available on our website [link will be added] that explains which operators carry out their own complaints handling, and where this falls under the Council's policy. 

When operators carry out their own complaints handling, this is kept under review through the Council's contract management obligations. 

What is not a complaint?

We receive a lot of service requests, and these are slightly different from complaints. A service request is a contact from a customer to the Council requiring action to be taken to put something right.

Examples include: 

• Reporting a missed bin collection. 
• An issue reported to us for the first time eg the need for a housing repair. 
• Asking us to reconsider a decision that has been made.

Talking with the relevant service should enable them to put the issue right straight away or allow them to explain why they can't.

If you are unsure who the best person to speak to is, please contact our Customer Service Centre 01329 236100 or email customerservicecentre@fareham.gov.uk 

If a service request is raised via the complaints system, it will be passed to the correct service to deal with as any other enquiry to that service would be.

 Where it is obvious that dissatisfaction remains due to a service failure, we will move this into the formal corporate complaints procedure and you will be contacted by the central complaints team who will acknowledge your complaint and explain the process. 

How to Raise a Complaint

• You can make a complaint in a range of ways: 
• Residents can raise a complaint in the following ways:
• By using the online complaint form
• By printing off a paper version of complaint form  (558 KB).
• By telephone: 01329 236100
• Email: complaints@fareham.gov.uk
• By letter: Complaints Team, Fareham Borough Council, Civic Offices, Civic Way, Fareham, PO16 7AZ
• In person
• Using an audio recording 
• In different languages

We accept complaints made on your behalf by third parties or representatives, eg Councillors, and will handle them as if you made the complaint yourself. Once a complaint has been submitted, Councillors will not be involved in investigating the matter or providing a response to the complainant.

If you make a complaint against a Councillor, it will be forwarded to our Monitoring Officer. If a Councillor receives a complaint about another Councillor, they will forward it to the Monitoring Officer and then have no further involvement.

We will make reasonable adjustments to help ensure that anyone wanting to make a complaint can do so. Details of how to make a complaint to the Council and Ombudsman are published on our dedicated complaints webpage.

When you first contact us, we will ask you if you require any reasonable adjustments to be made to use this service. You can also ask for a reasonable adjustment at any time during our consideration of your complaint.

The Equalities Act 2010 does not define what reasonable adjustments are, however, the Council will consider where we may need to make a change to our usual practice to avoid or correct a disadvantage to a person who has a disability in accessing our service.   

Examples of reasonable adjustments could include:

• providing documents or correspondence in larger print
• using the telephone if you have a visual disability (please note that we will always send formal responses in writing, even if we have given you this information over the telephone)
• communicating with you through an advocate or your representative
• providing access to an interpretation service 

The law says that an adjustment only has to be made if it is "reasonable" so, depending on the adjustment being requested, before agreeing to it we will consider what the disadvantage would be if the adjustment were not made, whether the adjustment will be effective in reducing the disadvantage, how practical it is to make, whether it would disrupt our other activities unreasonably and in some cases, the cost and availability of resources. 

We may also suggest new or additional adjustments if we feel it might help you continue to make the best use of our service.  

The annual Complaints Performance and Service Improvement report will also be published on the complaints webpage. 

Our Complaints Process

There are 2 stages of complaints, in line with the Complaints Handling Codes from the Housing Ombudsman and the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman. Our central Complaints team will manage the administration of complaints using a 2-stage process.

Stage 1

At this stage a Complaints Handler within the relevant service will investigate your complaint. We will:

• Acknowledge, log and define your complaint within 5 working days of receipt. The acknowledgement will advise you if any aspects of your complaint do not relate to functions or responsibilities of the Council, and which do; it will set out our understanding of the complaint; and will reference our understanding of any outcomes being sought.
• Investigate and respond to the complaint within 10 working days after we acknowledge and confirm your complaint.
• To avoid delaying our response and to ensure we respond when the answer is known, our response may include details of outstanding actions.
• For any outstanding actions, we will provide you with updates.
• If you raise any additional related complaint during the stage 1 process but prior to issuing the response, we will incorporate it in that investigation, if it does not unreasonably delay the response. 
• Any new unrelated complaint raised will be logged and investigated separately. 

In exceptional circumstances, particularly where your complaint is complex, we may not meet these timeframes. Complaint extensions at stage 1 must be no more than 10 working days without good reason. In this case we will let you know why and when you can expect a response.

Stage 2

If you are unhappy with our response at Stage 1, you can request that a more senior officer reviews the handling of your complaint. They will review whether the correct procedures and processes were followed when investigating the complaint in Stage 1. We will: 

• Acknowledge, log and define your Stage 2 complaint within 5 working days of receipt of your request to escalate from Stage 1. The acknowledgement will set out our understanding of the complaint; and will reference our understanding of any outcomes being sought.
• Investigate and respond to the complaint within 20 working days of acknowledging your complaint.
• To avoid delaying our response and to ensure we respond when the answer is known, our response may include details of outstanding actions.
• For any outstanding actions, we will provide you with updates.
• Any new unrelated complaint raised will be logged and investigated separately. 

In exceptional circumstances, particularly where your complaint is complex, we may not meet these timeframes. In this case we will let you know why and when you can expect a response. Complaint extensions at stage 2 must be no more than 20 working days without good reason. In this case we will let you know why and when you can expect a response.

 If we fall outside of the extended timescales for response, we will agree with you suitable intervals for keeping you updated. 

For Housing-related complaints, the Council, as landlord, will investigate and respond to both Stage 1 and Stage 2 complaints. A third-party Contractor may provide information during the course of the investigation to assist that investigation and inform the response. 

Ombudsman Complaints

You can contact the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, or the Housing Ombudsman at any point during the complaint process. We will provide you with their details when we acknowledge your complaint, if we are refusing your complaint, and in our complaint responses. 

Once we have completed stage 2, we will not investigate your complaint further. If you remain dissatisfied with the outcome of your complaint investigation after our response at Stage 2, you can ask the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman or the Housing Ombudsman Service for an independent review. 

Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman

• The quickest way to complain to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman is to complete an online complaint form. You can also complain by telephone.
• Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman Contact details are:
  • The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman
  • Tel: 0300 061 0614
  • Text 'call back' to: 0762 481 1595
  • Online complaint form: www.lgo.org.uk/make-a-complaint 

Housing Ombudsman

• The quickest way to complain to the Housing Ombudsman is to complete an online complaint form.
• Housing Ombudsman Contact details are:
  • Housing Ombudsman Service (for issues relating to Local Authority Housing only)
  • Online complaint form:www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk/residents/make-a-complaint/ 
  • If you wish to make a complaint by post, you can telephone the Housing Ombudsman Service on 0300 111 3000 and they can post you a complaint form.

Complaint Exclusions

21.There are some types of complaint which will be treated in a different way. Some examples of this are:

• Refusal of planning application, or the failure to make a decision within a given period – Appeals process.
• Freedom of Information, Environmental Information Regulations or Data Protection legislation matters.
  • Member complaints
• Any other matters for which an alternative statutory or Constitutional appeals mechanism exists, including:
  • Parking appeals
  • Licensing appeals
  • A Benefits or Council Tax decision.
  • A Homeless decision

We will always consider the individual circumstances of each complaint and use our discretion. However, in some instances, we will not investigate your complaint. Some examples of this are:

• Legal proceedings have started. This is defined as details of the claim, such as the Claim Form and Particulars of Claim, having been filed at court.
• Matters that have previously been considered under the complaints policy.

Ordinarily we will not investigate complaints of matters that took place over twelve months prior to the complaint date. Where we are fulfilling our duty as a landlord, we will accept complaints made within twelve months of the resident being made aware of the issue or the issue occurring. 

In these cases, we will let you know the reasons why we are treating your complaint differently or not investigating. We will give you the contact information for the Ombudsman at that time. 

Unreasonable Complaint Behaviour Policy

A copy of our Unreasonable Behaviour Policy can be viewed on the Council's Website here and requests to make that policy available in an accessible format will be considered by the Council.

Exceptional Circumstances

 If we are unable to comply with the Code due to exceptional circumstances, such as a cyber incident, the Council will:  

• Inform the Ombudsman.
• Provide information to residents who may be affected.
• Publish details on our Complaints Webpage, including a timescale for returning to compliance with the Code. 

Reporting on the Complaints Code

To ensure we monitor and learn from complaints we will provide regular updates to our Senior Leadership Team.

The Chairman of the Council's Audit and Governance Committee will be the Member Responsible for Complaints. They will receive an annual Complaints Performance and Service Improvement report presented at the Audit and Governance Committee to consider. This will include:

• An annual self-assessment against Housing Ombudsman's Code.
• A qualitative and quantitative analysis of our complaint handling performance, including a summary of the types of complaints we have refused to accept.
• Any findings of non-compliance with this Code by either Ombudsman.
• Service improvements made as a result of the learning from complaints.
• Any annual reports about the landlord's performance from either Ombudsman; and
• Any other relevant reports or publications produced by either Ombudsman.

The report along with the minutes of the Audit and Governance Committee will be made available on the Council's Complaints Webpage.

Publicising our approach to complaints

To ensure that people can easily make a complaint if needed we will:

• Publicise the Complaints Policy alongside information on the Ombudsman and Complaints Codes on our dedicated Complaints Webpage, social media accounts and our 44 public noticeboards.

Details on the Council's complaints policy will be included in customer satisfaction surveys.

Accessibility

Requests to make this Complaint policy available in an accessible format will be considered by the Council.