The Council's complaint procedure
The two stages of the complaints procedure
The Council encourages any customer who has a problem with a service they receive, due to a failure in the service, to report it.
The Council will seek to resolve complaints at the earliest opportunity. Where possible, every attempt will be made to deal with the issues quickly.
Full details can be found in our Corporate Complaints and Compliments Policy and Procedure document.
Some complaints received by the Council have to be dealt with under a statutory process and will not follow the Corporate Complaints Procedure set out below.
Stage one
All complaints will come into the triage team who will identify which route the complaint will follow.
We aim to contact you within three working days and a full written reply sent within ten working days.
If it involves a lot of issues and people, we may take an additional ten working days to reply.
We will let you know what we are going to do.
Stage two
If you are dissatisfied with the outcome of the Stage 1 investigation, you can request that your complaint is escalated to Stage 2.
A request to go to Stage 2 should be made by responding to the Stage 1 response we give you, writing to us at Havering Town Hall, Main Road, Romford RM1 3BB or by calling our contact centre on 01708 434343.
For those complaints which progress to Stage 2, we will conduct a further thorough and proportionate investigation and provide a full, clear and honest response within 20 working days.
We will try to give you an answer within 20 working days and will let you know if we think it might take longer than this.
If you remain dissatisfied following the review of your complaint, you will be informed of your right to refer the complaint to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, who deal with complaints about a number of council services, including planning, social care, housing benefit, environment and waste, transport and highways, council tax and some education matters.