How to Complain

Summary of the Council's Complaints Procedure

The Council has adopted a new corporate and housing complaints policy which is now in place. We will be updating our pages about complaints to reflect this.

Corporate and Housing Complaints Policy 1 September 2025

We welcome feedback and suggestions from our service users. If you believe you have not received the level of service you would expect, we ask you to tell us about it.

The purpose of this page is to tell you:

• How to complain to the Council.
• How we will deal with your complaint.
• What to do if you are still dissatisfied.
• The full 'Complaints procedure and form' is in the useful documents area at the bottom of this page.

1. How to Complain

If you feel the Council has done something wrong or badly, or failed to do something, please contact the officer you have been dealing with. You should ask them to put things right for you or explain why the Council has acted in this way. If you remain dissatisfied, you may wish to make a formal complaint by following the advice on this page.

If you wish to make a complaint about the Council for Corporate Matters, please complete our Complaints form or email corporatestage2complaints@tendringdc.gov.uk.

If you wish to make a complaint about the Council in its capacity as a Landlord, please complete our Complaints form or email councilhousingcomplaints@tendringdc.gov.uk.

To help us deal with your complaint you will need to tell us:

• What the problem is and how it has occurred
• How it has affected you
• What you consider we should now do to put the matter right

What can I complain about?

A complaint must be about something specific. It is most likely to be about one or more of the following:

• the standard of service provided by the Council
• failure by the Council to provide an agreed service
• failure by the Council to respond to a request for a service
• that the Council has exceeded its powers
• that the attitude or conduct of an officer has been unacceptable
• the Council has not followed an agreed procedure
• maladministration by the Council (delay, muddle, bias or confusion)

What can I not complain about?

This procedure does not cover:

• requests for a service
• requests for information or an explanation of Council policy or practice
• matters for which there is an existing right of appeal (either within the Council itself or to an independent tribunal) or legal remedy
• complaints about Councillors
• complaints made more than 6 months after the events complained about. Unless there are exceptional circumstances why the complaint could not have brought within this time.

If you are still not sure if your "complaint" is covered by this procedure, please complete the Complaints Form and send it to the Council's Monitoring Officer. They will look into the matter and reply to you.

If your complaint is about a Councillor, you can find more details on the Complaints about Councillors page.

2. How will you deal with my complaint?

When we look into complaints, we do the following:

• Investigate a complaint as quickly and impartially as possible. The department concerned does this initially.
• Provide you with a full response which includes our findings and resolves the matter to your satisfaction if we can.
• Keep the steps of the Complaints Procedure, as set out below, separate from each other

What are the steps of the Complaints Procedure?

How to make a complaint

If you feel the Council has done something wrong or badly, or failed to do something, the first thing you should do is contact the officer you have been dealing with. You should ask them to put things right for you or explain the reasons for the Council’s not doing what you expect them to do. If you remain dissatisfied, you may wish to make a formal complaint.

There are two stages to the Corporate and Housing Complaints Policy which are explained below:

 1) Stage 1

To submit a Stage 1 complaint, you can do so either by contacting the Council via telephone, letter, email, in person or by completing the complaints form. In order for us to deal with your complaint effectively you will need to tell us the following:

• What the problem is and how it has occurred
• How it has affected you
• What you consider we should do now to put the matter right

Once your complaint has been submitted you should expect to receive an acknowledgment within 5 working days which will set out when you can expect to receive a response from the service. You should receive the Stage 1 response within 10 working days from the acknowledgement having been sent.

Following receipt, of your Stage 1 response if you are unhappy with the initial response you have received, you should use either contact the service or corporatestage2complaints@tendringdc.gov.uk and ask for the complaint to be escalated to Stage 2. Please note that we will only refuse to escalate a complaint to Stage 2 if we have a valid reason for doing so and, in these circumstances, we will always provide an explanation.

2) Stage 2

If you request that your complaint, be escalated to Stage 2 you should receive an acknowledgement within 5 working days of your request being received. This acknowledgement should set out the following:

• Our understanding of the complaint
• The outcome you are seeking
• Who will be investigating your complaint (this will not be the same person that investigated the complaint under stage 1)

In order to undertake the Stage 2 investigation the investigating officer will generate an investigator’s report that shall be provided to the appropriate Corporate Director to examine, provide their approval and once finalised a copy of this will be provided to you.

You will also receive from the appropriate Corporate Director a thorough response within 20 working days from our acknowledgement to your request to escalate your complaint to stage 2. Contained within this stage 2 response should be the details for referring your complaint to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman should remain dissatisfied with our response.

If you are not comfortable or confident making a complaint, we will signpost you to national and local advice organisations who may be able to help you with making a complaint.

Corporate complaints

You can also get support and advice from the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman. Details on how to contact them are below:

• Phoning: 0300 061 0614
• ‍Writing to: Local Government and Social Ombudsman, PO Box 4771, Coventry, CV4 0EH
• Via their website www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk

Housing complaints

You can also get support and advice from the Housing Ombudsman Service. Details on how to contact them are below:

• Phoning: 0300 111 3000
• ‍Writing to: Housing Ombudsman Service, PO Box 1484, Unit D, Preston, PR2 0ET
• Via their website www.lgo.org.uk

3. What if I am still not satisfied?

You have the right to refer your complaint to either the Local Government Ombudsman or Housing Ombudsman at any time. The Local Government Ombudsman is an independent person who looks into complaints of maladministration (bad practice) against local authorities. The Ombudsman will usually want to know if your complaint can be resolved between us, so you should follow the steps in the Complaints Procedure first. You can contact The Ombudsman on:

Tel: 0300 061 0614
Website: https://www.lgo.org.uk/
Fax: 024 7682 0001
Text: 'call back' to 0762 480 4299
Write to: Local Government Ombudsman, PO Box 4771, Coventry CV4 0EH

A booklet explaining how to refer matters to the Ombudsman is available from Council offices.

Please fill in the Complaints Form within the Complaints Procedure booklet (see Useful Documents below). Send the completed form to the relevant Head of Department. We have provided a word version of the complaints form, if you want to fill it in electronically. (For details of the services provided by each department, please see attached links)

Corporate Services, Town Hall, Station Road, Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, CO15 1SE

Operational Services, Town Hall, Station Road, Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, CO15 1SE

Planning Services, Town Hall, Station Road, Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, CO15 1SE

Useful Documents

Corporate and Housing Complaints Policy 1 September 2025

‍Complaints form - word version

How we deal with persistent, vexatious or unreasonable complaints