Customer feedback, compliments and complaints

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman have launched a consultation on a joint complaint handling code, together with the Housing Ombudsman. The Ombudsman believes that a single code that applies to all Councils in England will make it easier for customers to know what to expect, in terms of how their complaint is going to be dealt with and that it will improve complaints handling and standards, resulting in better services.

The code covers all complaints apart from statutory childrens and adults complaints, which have separate processes and includes areas such as; the administration and handling of complaints, timescales and stages for responding to complaints and learning from complaints. The Council will be asked to self-assess against the Code annually on a 'comply or explain' basis and publish this on our website. The emphasis is not on numbers of complaints, but on timescales for responding to complaints and learning from complaints.

Members of the public can add their views via the Ombudsman's website and the link to the code can be found here: Complaint handling code-local Government and Social Care Ombudsman

You may wish to tell us if we have succeeded in providing a high quality service, a member of staff has impressed you or just to comment on how we could improve on our services. Let Us Know by visiting our contact us page.

Cheshire East Council aims to provide high quality services but acknowledges that things can go wrong.

A complaint is an expression of dissatisfaction about the Council’s action or lack of action or about the standard of a service. This also applies to an organisation or contractor acting on behalf of the Council.

You can download a copy of our Corporate Complaints, Compliments and Suggestions Policy (PDF, 395KB.)

Complaints about a councillor, social care service or schools are legally treated differently.

Making an informal complaint or service request

You should give the department an opportunity to resolve your concerns informally if you are unhappy with a service provided.  Please use this option if you are reporting a missed bin collection, a highways problem or a grounds maintenance issue. You can do this by raising a service request through our customer contact centre (0300 123 5500) or filling in a form on the contact us page.

Making a formal complaint

You may feel it necessary to make a formal complaint if your informal discussions, or repeated service requests do not resolve your issues.

Due to current workloads and volume of correspondence, complaints for the following service areas currently continue to have a 20 working day response timescale – (1) Planning including Development Management and Planning Enforcement and (2) Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). These arrangements are kept under review.

You can download a copy of the Let Us Know form (PDF, 248KB) available at all Customer Service Centres.

Post:

Customer Relations Team - Cheshire East Council
Customer Contact Centre
Macclesfield Town Hall
C/O Delamere House
Delamere Street
Crewe
CW1 2LL

In person at any of our Customer Service Centres

Special contact measures

The Council is committed to providing the high quality services that we know our customers expect. We aim to deliver our services through a ‘right first time’ approach where we meet appropriate customer demands in a professional and timely way. In return, we ask customers for their cooperation and to be polite and respectful when dealing with Council staff.

This document sets out how the Council will respond to ‘unreasonable behaviour’.

Page last reviewed: 11 September 2023