Oxford City Council

Compliments

As a service provider, Oxford City Council strives to excel in customer satisfaction. We particularly welcome feedback where our staff, services, policies and procedures have exceeded customer expectations.

What do you do with my compliments and will I receive an acknowledgement?

The feedback is used by the service area but also across the Council so that we can and corporately adopt best practice and celebrate an individual employee or departments' success. In most cases, a response to a compliment is not necessary.

Comments

Any comment we receive from our customers is invaluable to us and we encourage customers to make suggestions that will help to shape and improve our services.

What do you do with my comments and will I receive an acknowledgement?

These comments are reviewed regularly and they can be used to improve our services. Usually, a response to a comment will not be necessary.

Complaints

Although Oxford City Council's objective is to build a world class city for everyone and excel in our service provision, we recognise that things sometimes can go wrong. When they do, we want to put them right as soon as possible and learn from what happened to develop and improve services and procedures.

To help us resolve any problems, we have a procedure that ensures all complaints are dealt with fairly and appropriately:

What is a complaint?

A complaint is when you are concerned or dissatisfied with a service we provide or our policies and procedures do not meet your expectations. Examples of this are:

When we haven't done something we have agreed to do
When we have done something wrong
If you think the quality of service provided is poor
If you think a procedure or policy is wrong or lacking
Where you feel a member of staff has been unhelpful or rude

What is the process and timescales?

There are three stages to Oxford City Council's complaints procedure, after you have been through the Council's process and you remain dissatisfied, it is usually possible for you to refer the matter to the Local Government Ombudsman (who is independent to the Council). The three stages are:

Stage One:
If you are dissatisfied with the service we provide, the best way to resolve this is to contact us, explain your concerns and we will seek to explain and, if required, address any issues.

We aim to acknowledge receipt of your complaint within three working days. Our aim is to provide you with a full response to your query within a further 10 working days. If we cannot respond to you in these timescales, we will let you know and give you an alternative timescale. Unless you have requested us to respond in a specific manner, our response will be by email, telephone or letter, or in some cases, face-to face.

Stage Two:
If you are not satisfied with the outcome of your initial complaint (or it is a more serious matter, such as a complaint about a Team Leader), you can ask the Head of Service to investigate and reply to you.

The timescales are the same as Stage One for acknowledging and responding. A written response to your complaint will be given.

Stage Three:
In the unlikely event that you remain dissatisfied with our earlier responses, or if your complaint concerns a Head of Service or it is of an extremely serious nature, your complaint will be escalated to Stage Three.

At Stage Three, the Chief Executive will arrange for an investigation and an independent view will be taken, and a written response will then follow.

Again, we aim to acknowledge within three working days and to provide a detailed response within a further 10 working days. Additional time may be needed because of the nature of the complaint. If extra time is required, we will let you of this and provide an alternative timescale.

How can I let you know about a compliment, comment, or complaint I have?

There are three ways you can contact us:

Local Government Ombudsman

If you have exhausted all the stages of the Council's complaints procedure and you feel that your complaint has not been resolved satisfactorily, you can refer your complaint to the Local Government Ombudsman.

The Local Government Ombudsman will carry out an independent investigation into your complaint.

For more information and contact details visit the Local Government Ombudsman website.

Complaints Against Councillors

Visit our Complaints Process Against a Councillor page for information on how to make a complaint if you are unhappy about the way that a Councillor, a member of either Oxford City Council or a Parish Council within the city, has behaved.

Comments, Compliments and Complaints Leaflet

PDF icon Comments, Compliments and Complaints Leaflet (66kB PDF)

How to make a comment, compliment or complaint about us