Make a complaint
Have you ever felt unhappy or dissatisfied with a service you've received from us? Unfortunately, there are times when things go wrong, and as part of our commitment to high-quality services we are making sure that we listen to your complaints.
We define a complaint as 'An expression of dissatisfaction, however made, about the standard of service, actions or lack of action by the organisation, its own staff, or those acting on its behalf, affecting an individual or group of individuals.'
All complaints are important to us because they tell us what you think of our services. We know there is always room to improve and so we want to make every effort to put things right as quickly as possible.
Other concerns about our services
Faults and service requests
Not all concerns are handled as ‘complaints’, for example a faulty streetlight, graffiti, an abandoned car or a missed bin collection are faults or service requests and are handled quickly outside of the complaints process.
Separate rights of appeal
Some complaints may fall under an alternative statutory appeal or tribunal process.
If you wish to appeal or challenge a decision, please go to the appropriate link listed below:
- Appeal a parking ticket / Penalty Charge Notice (PCN
- Make a Council Tax reduction appeal
- Make a Housing Benefit appeal
- Appeal a planning decision
- Request a housing review
- Appeal a Special Educational Needs Disability (SEND) decision
- Appeal a school admissions
Antisocial behaviour
Antisocial behaviour should be reported to the police or your housing association. There is a separate procedure for reporting antisocial behaviour on a council estate. Visit our antisocial behaviour reporting page for more information.
Other procedures
The complaints procedure for certain other services, schools and Councillors are different to the rest of the Council. Please use the following links:
- Children or Young People's Care Services
- Adult Care Services
- Wandsworth's schools
- Councillors
- Noise complaint
- Freedom of Information (FOI)
- Data breach or a security incident
- Data protection (other than a data breach)
If you want to complain about a data protection matter (other than a data breach) you should contact the Data Protection Officer at dpo@richmondandwandsworth.gov.uk.
How to make a complaint
To make a complaint, please use the online form below.
How we deal with corporate complaints
We will normally only consider complaints about things which happened in the past 12 months. However, in some cases we may be able to consider complains outside of this period.
In all cases we aim to acknowledge your complaint within 2 working days at both stage 1 and stage 2.
Stage 1 - Investigation
- We aim to send you a response within 20 working days or 10 working days for housing complaints that have appeal rights to the Housing Ombudsman - if we cannot reply within this time, we will let you know the reason why
- We will tell you who is dealing with your complaint and when you can expect to get a response
- A service manager will investigate your stage 1 complaint
- If you are not happy with our response, we will listen to your concerns
If you are not satisfied with our stage 1 response you should contact the person named in your stage 1. Try to let us know within 20 working days if you wish to escalate your complaint to stage 2.
Stage 2 - Review
- We aim to send you a response to stage 2 within 25 working days or 20 working days for housing complaints that have appeal rights to the Housing Ombudsman - if we cannot reply within this time, we will let you know why, and when you can expect to get a response
- A senior manager will review the stage 1 response, and then write to you with the decision for stage 2. You will be provided with information at the end of the stage 2 about your rights to take your complaint to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman or to the Housing Ombudsman Service if you are not satisfied with the final response.
View the Corporate Complaints Policy for full details.
We currently have a separate Corporate Complaints Policy for Housing where appeal rights are to the Housing Ombudsman.
Complain to the Ombudsman
We will try our best to resolve your problem, but if you are still unhappy you can complain to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman or the Housing Ombudsman depending on the service the complaint refers to.
They are independent services and can investigate to see if a local authority has acted unfairly or if you have been caused an injustice.
You can contact either Ombudsman service at any time, but you will normally be asked to complete both stages of our complaints procedure first.
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman
PO Box 4771
Coventry
CV4 0EH
Telephone: 0300 061 0614
Lines are open as follows:
- Mondays and Wednesdays - 1 to 4pm
- Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays - 10am to 4pm
Website: https://www.lgo.org.uk
Housing Ombudsman Service
Housing Ombudsman Service
PO Box 1484
Unit D
Preston PR2 0ET
Telephone: 0300 111 3000
Lines are open as follows:
- Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays - 9am to 5pm
- Thursdays - 9am to 3.30pm
Website: https://www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk
Anonymous complaints
We take all complaints seriously and accepts anonymous complaints through all methods of communication. We will ensure these are passed to the relevant services to investigate and undertake any identified actions. However, due to the anonymous nature of such complaints, we will be unable to provide a response unless a contact email or postal address is provided.
Unreasonable behaviour
We are committed to delivering excellent service to all our residents, but we know we cannot always get everything right first time. We understand and accept there may be times when we fall below our usual high standards. In those circumstances, we want to hear from you. If you make a complaint, we will do our best to resolve the issue as quickly as we can.
If you become angry or impatient with our staff whilst making a complaint, or are unreasonably persistent in your contact, we reserve the right to make use of our policy on Unreasonable Complainant Behaviour.
Annual report
View our 2022-23 Corporate Complaints report.
You can also read our Housing Ombudsman Self Assessment.
Privacy
For information on why we collect personal information, how it is used and shared, how long it is kept, how we protect it and the legal basis for collecting it, see our privacy notice.