Council complaints

What this guide covers

Ordinary council complaints in England are not a single statutory appeal system. The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman's Complaint Handling Code is issued as advice and guidance under section 23(12A) of the Local Government Act 1974. Councils should consider it when designing policies and responding to complaints, but it does not displace statutory complaint, review or appeal schemes. The practical job is to identify what route applies, preserve any external deadline, and keep the service problem separate from the complaint-handling problem.

A deep guide to ordinary council complaints: service requests, Stage 1 and Stage 2, evidence, remedies, exclusions, appeals and LGSCO escalation.

The points that usually decide the case

• Identify whether you are complaining about a service failure, an administrative failure, a decision with a separate appeal, or more than one of those things.
• Under the LGSCO Code, you do not have to use the word 'complaint' before an expression of dissatisfaction can be treated as one. A council should not keep recycling a live complaint as a fresh service request.
• Stage 1 should normally be acknowledged within five working days and answered within ten working days of acknowledgement. Stage 2 should normally be acknowledged within five working days and answered within twenty working days of acknowledgement.
• Where a complaint has several issues, require the response to deal with each issue and state clearly which parts are upheld, not upheld or outside the council's responsibility.
• Keep any statutory appeal, tribunal, review, judicial-review or court deadline separate. The complaints procedure may not preserve it.
• Ask for a remedy that matches the fault: practical action, correction, apology, reconsideration, reimbursement, symbolic redress or service improvement where appropriate.

Common situations

Start with the correct route

Before complaining, write down the council function, the act or omission you challenge, the outcome you want and whether a separate statutory review or appeal exists. Corporate complaints are a safety net for service and administrative failures; they are not a substitute for every appeal. If a council declines to accept a complaint, it should explain why and signpost the relevant external route.

Build the complaint around issues, not volume

Number the issues. For each one state what happened, what should have happened, the evidence, the resulting injustice and the remedy sought. This makes omissions visible at Stage 1 and gives Stage 2 a defined task. Keep new, unrelated problems separate unless combining them would genuinely make the investigation clearer.

Keep actions and the complaint running in parallel

A complaint response does not have to wait until every remedial action is complete. Likewise, logging a complaint should not stop the service team fixing the underlying problem. Track both: the complaint deadline and the outstanding operational action.

Escalation is about what remains unresolved

At Stage 2, identify the unanswered or wrongly answered points, factual errors, overlooked evidence, unexplained policy departures and inadequate remedy. The LGSCO Code says the Stage 2 reviewer should not be the same person who considered Stage 1 and the final response should normally be issued within 20 working days of acknowledgement.

Evidence to keep

Build the record as you go. The most useful evidence for this topic usually includes:

• original complaint and proof of receipt
• published complaint policy and the version/date relied on
• Stage 1/Stage 2 acknowledgements and target dates
• all substantive responses
• a numbered issue-and-answer schedule
• evidence of the practical injustice and remedy requested

Keep originals and, where a document is later replaced online, retain the version that actually applied to your case. For calls, a contemporaneous note made immediately afterwards is far more useful than trying to reconstruct the conversation months later.

How to put the issue in writing

Use a short issue structure rather than one long narrative. Start with the decision, failure or service request and its reference number. Then number each complaint point. For each point identify the relevant date, the evidence, what you say was wrong, the practical effect and the outcome you want.

If the council has given different explanations, quote each material position with its date and ask it to reconcile them. If a response omits an issue, say “Issue 3 was not answered” and restate only that issue. This produces a record that can be audited at Stage 2 or by an external body without forcing the reader to infer what remains disputed.

When to escalate

If the council has reached its final local response, check whether LGSCO is the appropriate external body. The Ombudsman is not a general Stage 3 merits appeal: frame the case around fault, injustice and remedy. Where a statutory appeal exists, protect that route first.

Escalation should not become an endless email chain. Once the authority has given a final response, or the relevant procedure is unreasonably stalled, preserve the final position and use the external route that has jurisdiction. Keep any legal limitation or statutory appeal deadline under separate review.

What this route cannot guarantee

A complaint can expose poor administration, require a reasoned response and support a remedy, but it does not guarantee the technical, enforcement or discretionary outcome you prefer. Where an authority has lawful discretion, the key question is usually whether it gathered the relevant evidence, applied the correct framework, gave intelligible reasons and acted without avoidable delay.

Likewise, an Ombudsman recommendation, statutory appeal, civil claim, data-protection complaint and information request perform different jobs. ConsumerWise links them where they overlap but keeps the legal tests separate.