Get involved

We are committed to providing high quality services at all times. Our staff and partners work hard to get things right, but sometimes things do go wrong. If you are not happy with the level of service you have received we'd like to hear from you so that we can take action to make any necessary changes to improve the service. Similarly, if you let us know what we are doing well, we can use that information to help plan for the future.

Compliments, comments and feedback

It is always great to receive positive feedback. You can make a compliment, comment or give feedback about an overall service, department or individual member of staff.

Please use our contact us form and select the appropriate service area from the dropdown.

Complaints

If you are not happy with the level of service you have received, you can make an official complaint. Generally speaking, a complaint has to be made within 12 months from the date on which the matter occurred, or the matter came to the notice of the complainant.

Please check which of the following best suits your needs:

• Service request If you wish to report a fault about a council service directly to the team concerned (for example, your bin was not collected or you want to appeal a parking ticket) this is a service request. Please use our contact us form or find the online process or contact information below or in the relevant section of this website
• A formal complaint is an expression of dissatisfaction about the standard of service, actions or lack of action by the council, our staff or contractors. If your issue has not been resolved by the service request, please use the online formal complaints form or download and complete a formal complaints form. Our formal complaints process sets out how we deal with your complaint

Service areas complaints processes

• Adult social care and healthcare - compliments, comments or complaints
  If you need support to make a complaint about health or social care services Onside Advocacy provide a free and confidential service for people in Herefordshire to enable you to make your complaint.
• Children's and young people's services
  Complaints that fall under the children's complaints and representations policy are those that have a demonstrable impact on the child or young person and come from a person who is deemed able to complain on behalf of the child or come from the child or young person themselves.
• Further education and apprenticeships
• Schools and early years providers - complaints about primary or secondary schools - If you need to complain about a school you should approach them directly. All schools manage their own complaints and must have a complaints procedure, which should be available on their website. Please use our schools directory to find the name and contact details. For more information about complaints to education providers or if you feel your complaint was not resolved visit Gov.uk Complaints procedure.
• The council has a very small number of housing tenants in accommodation owned by the council. The policy for these tenants to make complaints about their housing is available alongside the housing complaints self-assessment code.

Process for formal complaints

You can find full information on how we deal with all formal complaints and requests for information held by the council in our corporate complaints policy.

We will:

• Acknowledge your complaint, normally within five working days
• Provide you with a date for a full detailed response
• Investigate your complaint
• Make every effort to resolve your complaint and ensure that it is investigated fully and fairly
• Deal with you in resolving your complaint with dignity and respect

If you are still unhappy you can take your complaint further by contacting the Ombudsman Service or call 024 7682 0000. You can contact the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman at any point, however, they will not usually deal with a complaint until the local complaints procedure has been completed.

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman publishes decision notices regarding the complaints they receive. To see the decision notices relating to Herefordshire Council, go the Ombudsman website and enter "Herefordshire Council" as the organisation name.

Privacy notice for complaints handling

Councillors' conduct

• You can download and view the councillors' code of conduct and view the national guidance on councillors' personal interests. If you would like to make a complaint about a councillor's conduct, please refer to our standards procedure document. Complaints must be made using the members conduct complaint form which also contains more information on what to expect and how we process your complaint. Where there is an appeal against the complaint we follow the Code of conduct appeals process
• Wherever possible, the monitoring officer will resolve complaints. If, following a formal investigation, this is not possible, the monitoring officer will refer the matter to the Standards Panel, following the Standards Panel procedure for hearing an appeal
• For complaints against parish councillors, the Guidance on complaints against parish councillors sets out what the monitoring officer can investigate in relation to these complaints
• Where it has been resolved under monitoring officer resolution that there has been a breach of the code of conduct, you can view the decision notices
• Herefordshire Council have a protocol with West Mercia Police in respect of investigations into alleged criminal failures to declare a disclosable pecuniary interest under Section 34 of the Localism Act 2011
• Privacy notice for code of conduct complaints

Unreasonable behaviour policy

We expect all council employees to deal with members of the public with dignity and respect at all times. This is embedded in the council's PEOPLE values, behaviour policy and code of conduct. We also expect all members of the public to behave in a reasonable manner when dealing with officers of the council.

Our unreasonable behaviour policy sets out clearly what behaviours are deemed as unreasonable and unacceptable, and what the council will do if members of the public do not behave in an appropriate way.