At Your Service
In West Dunbartonshire Council we are committed to providing the best quality services which we can afford and we aim constantly to improve those services. In all big organisations like ours, things sometimes go wrong. With your help, we aim to identify problems, to solve them quickly and efficiently and to prevent them happening again. Your views matter to us. Our complaints procedure lets you tell us what you feel has gone wrong and helps us improve our services for everyone.
When to use our complaints procedure
You should use the complaints procedure if you believe that:
- We have done something wrong.
- We have failed to do something that you expected.
- We have not treated you with courtesy.
Enquiry or complaint?
Some problems or enquiries are not complaints. Therefore you don't need to use the complaints procedure if:
- You want to query a letter or bill.
- You want to report a repair (like a street light or pot-hole).
- You want to ask about a council service.
- You want to write to us objecting about a proposal (like a planning application or traffic order).
There are also certain kinds of "appeals and reviews" that, by law, we must handle in a certain way. These include things like school admission appeals, housing benefit/council tax, social work appeals and homeless persons reviews. The service responsible will give you advice about these.
How to complain
Step 1
Contact us, a member of staff will try to sort things out for you on the spot.
Step 2
If you are still not satisfied, please complete a complaint form.
Submit a complaint using the online form
We will make sure that:
- We treat your complaint fairly and that we thoroughly investigate it.
- We tell you the name of the officer handling your complaint.
- We send you a written acknowledgement within 5 working days. If possible, we will give you a full reply at this stage.
- We respond to your complaint within 20 working days. If your complaint is very complex or if we need to contact other organisations it may take longer, but we will let you know.
Step 3
If you are still unhappy once you have a final reply from the department responsible you can contact:
The Chief Executive, Council Offices, Garshake Road, Dumbarton, G82 3PU
Who else can help?
You always have the option of contacting the following elected representatives at any stage:
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Your local Councillor,
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Member of Scottish Parliament,
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Member of Parliament
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or your European Member of Parliament.
You also have the right to submit a complaint to the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman
You must make any such complaint within twelve months of the problem arising. The Ombudsman also expects you to have made a formal complaint to the Council and have received our final response.
SPSO
Freepost EH641
EDINBURGH
EH3 0BR
telephone: 0800 377 7330
Fax: 0800 377 7331
Text: 0790 049 4372
Email: ask@spso.ork.uk
The Ombudsman is happy to receive enquiries by phone, post, email or even in person, and their complaints form can also be downloaded and submitted online via their website.
