Frequently Asked Questions

Question:

What is not a complaint?

Answer:

A first time service or task request should be logged through Info in Herefordshire or the relevant department as a works request, not a complaint.

For example: A customer who phones to tell us about a noisy party is not making a complaint about the council's standard of service, action or lack of action. They are reporting an incident which they expect we will be able to do something about.

However, failing to act on the request or doing it inadequately, may well lead to a complaint. For example having made a request for service, if we then fail to respond within a reasonable time scale and you have to contact us again, that is a complaint.

Exceptions

Certain issues are not dealt with under this procedure.

They are:

• Planning appeals
• Licensing applications
• Homelessness cases
• Housing benefit appeals
• School admissions
• School exclusions
• GEM/environmental management issues
• Parking enforcementBlue Badge challenges

This is because all these functions have separate (and in some cases statutory) appeals procedures.

• Complaints about individual schools should be referred to the Head teacher and Governors.
• Complaints against Councillors should be referred to the Head of Legal and Democratic Services in their role as Monitoring Officer and will not be dealt with under this procedure.

The only exception to the above is where the complaint relates to the way in which the application has been handled or to the behaviour of a member of staff. A complaint about the behaviour of a member of staff or the way an application has been handled will be dealt with through the normal Complaints Procedure.

Last Updated: 27 May 08,

Review Date: 20 September 2005