Service request or council complaint?

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.

Know when a routine request to fix or provide something has become a complaint about delay, inaction, closure, communication or service failure.

The points that usually decide the case

• A service request asks the authority to provide, improve, fix or reconsider a service. A complaint expresses dissatisfaction about the authority's action, lack of action or standard of service.
• The same underlying problem can generate both: the operational team should keep working on the service request while the complaints team considers how it was handled.
• Do not let repeated reports erase the original date. Preserve the first report reference and every later status change or closure.
• If the council says you must wait until the service request is complete before complaining, ask it to identify the policy basis and explain how that position fits the LGSCO Code.
• A complaint about handling is not automatically a demand for a different technical decision. Define the administrative failures separately.

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.

When the handling becomes the complaint

A missed collection, pothole, faulty lamp or unanswered enquiry will often begin as a request for service. That is sensible: the operational team should usually have the first opportunity to put the problem right. But a council should not keep sending you back to the same reporting form once your dissatisfaction is about how the service has been handled. Repeated closure without explanation, missed promised actions, refusal to explain a decision, lost reports, inaccurate records or prolonged inaction can all create a complaint-handling issue distinct from the original fault.

Make the transition explicit. Give the original service reference and say that you are not merely reporting the defect again: you are complaining about the council's response to that report. Identify the handling failures separately from the unresolved operational problem. This prevents the complaint being diluted into another maintenance ticket and gives a later reviewer a clear starting point.

Do not let the complaint stop the repair

The two tracks should normally run together. The operational team can continue investigating or repairing the underlying problem while the complaints team examines delay, communication, record keeping or decision making. If the council says it cannot answer the complaint until every action is complete, ask it to explain why. The LGSCO Complaint Handling Code says a response should be issued when the answer to the complaint is known; outstanding remedial actions can then be tracked separately.

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.