Complaints Policy and Procedure

Agreed 2^nd July 2024

Review 7th July 2026

Introduction

The Parish Council aims to learn from any complaints it receives and, where they are found to be justified, to ensure that appropriate measures are taken to improve services.  

Leven Parish Council will:  

• ensure that anyone who wishes to make a complaint knows how to do it;
• respond to a complaint efficiently and within a reasonable time;
• ensure that service users are satisfied that the complaint has been taken seriously and, where possible, reasonable measures have been taken to improve services.  

All complaints will be dealt with in confidence, and the name of the complainant will not be revealed by the Parish Council, except where it is the wish of the complainant.  

The Parish Council will investigate a complaint from a person, or their nominated representative, if it is one of the following:

• An expression of dissatisfaction about the failure to provide or meet the expected standard of a service.
• Neglect or delay in responding to a contact within the Parish Council.  
• Failure to observe the Parish Council’s policies or procedures.
• Discourteous or dishonest conduct by a member of staff.  
• Harassment, bias or discrimination.

The Complaints Procedure does not cover:

• Complaints about the conduct of Parish Councillors.  These should be reported to the Monitoring Officer at East Riding of Yorkshire Council at standards@eastriding.gov.uk
• Where a person wishes to disagree with a Parish Council decision or policy or makes a request under the Freedom of Information Act, whereby there are alternative processes for representation in place.

To make a Complaint

A formal written letter of complaint must be sent to the Clerk or if the complaint involves the Clerk, the letter should be sent to the Chairman of the Parish Council.

Complaint handling

Within three working days of receipt of the complaint, the Clerk or Chairman will give written acknowledgement of it, provide a copy of this complaints procedure and ascertain whether the complainant wishes the matter to be treated confidentially.

The formal complaint will be considered at the next meeting of the Parish Council. If more than twenty-one days is to lapse between receipt of the complaint and the next meeting of the Parish Council, the Chairman will convene an extraordinary meeting of the Parish Council to receive and hear the complaint.

At the meeting, the Parish Council may resolve to exclude members of the public and press to ensure confidentiality.  Depending on whether the complainant wishes the matter to be dealt with in this way.

At the meeting, the Parish Council will consider the complaint and will also include on the agenda the appointment of three members to a committee with delegated power to continue handling the complaint, if necessary.  The committee will have full delegated power to bring the complaint to a conclusion.  The Parish Council will also resolve which member will be the Chairman of the Committee.

The Parish Council and/or Committee with delegated power may appoint an independent person to the committee if it resolves to do so, as an independent impartial arbitrator.

After the meeting, the Clerk/Chairman will write to the complainant explaining the outcome of the Parish Council’s consideration of the complaint and explaining how to take matters further if they believe this is necessary.

If the complainant wishes to pursue the matter, he/she must notify the Parish Council in writing with his/her reasons for wanting to do so and a meeting of the committee will be convened for the purpose of investigating the complaint further.

Notice of the committee meeting will be advertised in the usual way to members of the committee, ie a summons and with three clear days’ notice.  A public notice will also be displayed in the usual way, i.e. posted on the council website giving three clear days’ notice.

Complainants will be asked by formal letter to attend the committee meeting and will be informed that they may be accompanied by another person.

At the commencement of the meeting, the Committee Chairman will explain how the meeting will proceed.

Complainants will be asked to provide any new information or supporting evidence to the committee and will be invited to make a verbal representation to the meeting.

Members of the committee will be invited by the Chairman to ask questions of the complainant.

The Chairman of the Complaints Committee and then the complainant will summarise their respective positions

The complainant will then leave the meeting and the committee will consider the further findings.

The complainant will be informed by formal letter of the conclusions of the process within five working days of the committee meeting.  There is no right to further consideration.

The committee chairman will report the outcome of the process to the next meeting of the Parish Council.

Minutes of the committee meeting will be kept and will be available to all parties involved in the complaint.

Anonymous Complaints

The Parish Council will not action any information/complaints made anonymously whether by telephone, email or letter.

They will report any potentially criminal matter to the Police.

If any Parish Councillor or the Clerk receives an anonymous phone call the caller will be advised that anonymous calls cannot be actioned other than to inform the Police if appropriate and that any complaint against the Parish Council should be put in writing to the Clerk and any complaint about an individual Parish Councillor should be addressed to the Monitoring Officer at East Riding of Yorkshire Council.

Abusive calls will be terminated.

Vexatious Complainants

The Parish Council is committed to making its services and information open and accessible to residents in accordance with the principles of Open Government. It strives to deal with all information requests, queries and complaints speedily, fairly and in an impartial manner. The Council also has a duty to minimise unnecessary public expenditure and avoid nugatory or disproportionate demands on the time of its staff and members.

Most complainants or people making requests behave in legitimate ways. A very small minority may make complaints or requests for information that are vexatious in that they persist unreasonably with their complaints/requests or make complaints/requests to challenge the Council rather than genuinely to resolve a grievance. In addition, a small number of people may correspond with, or complain to, the Parish Council in a way that could reasonably be described as obsessive, harassing, intimidating or abusive.

The Council recognises that it is important to distinguish between people who make complaints/requests because they genuinely believe things have gone wrong, and people who are seeking to challenge and divert the legitimate business of the Council. It is acknowledged that complainants will often be frustrated and aggrieved and it is therefore important to consider the merits of each case and put them into context.

The Parish Council does not tolerate harassment or intimidation in any form, of any of its employees or Councillors. This applies to behaviour from members of the public and Parish Council employees or Councillors alike.  Under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, a person must not pursue a course of conduct which:

a) Amounts to harassment of another, and

b) The individual knows or ought to know what amounts to harassment of the other.

Such actions can be:

• Physical conduct
• Verbal conduct; and
• Non-verbal conduct.

This policy is designed to address vexatious correspondence and complaints. It should assist the Council to manage inappropriately demanding or unreasonable behaviour from correspondents.

This policy is not designed to address violent or threatening behaviour which may need an urgent response.

This section defines situations where a complainant, either individually or as part of a group, or a group of complainants or requests, might be considered to be ‘habitual or vexatious’ and how to respond to these situations.

A complainant may be deemed to be habitual or vexatious where previous or current contact with them shows that they meet one of the following criteria:

• Persist in pursuing a complaint where the Parish Council’s Complaints Procedures have been fully and properly implemented and exhausted
• Persistently change the substance of a complaint or continually raise new issues or seek to prolong contact by raising further concerns or questions upon receipt of a response; or deny receipt of an adequate response, or do not accept that facts
• can be difficult to verify when a long period of time has elapsed
• Repeatedly fail to identify the precise issues which they wish to be investigated, despite reasonable efforts of the Parish Council to help them specify their concerns, and/or where the concerns identified are not within the remit of the Council to investigate
• Regularly focus on a trivial matter out of proportion to its significance and continue to focus on this point
• Have, during addressing a registered complaint, had an excessive number of contacts with the Parish Council – placing unreasonable demands on staff or Councillors.

For the purposes of determining an excessive number, a contact may be in person, by telephone, letter or e-mail.

Discretion will be used in determining the precise number of excessive contacts applicable under this section, using judgement based on the specific circumstances of each individual case.

• Have harassed or been personally abusive or verbally aggressive on more than one occasion towards staff or Councillors dealing with the complaint.

Where complainants have been identified as habitual or vexatious in accordance with the criteria set out above, the Clerk in consultation with the Chair will as appropriate take one or more of the following courses of action:

• The complainant will be notified in writing why their complaint has been classified as vexatious. The complainant will be advised of the Parish Council’s normal complaints procedure and what steps to follow if that is appropriate.
• The complainant will be notified, in writing, that the Parish Council has responded fully to the points raised and has tried to resolve the complaint but that there is nothing more to add and that continuing contact on the matter will serve no useful purpose.
• The complainant will also be notified that the correspondence is at an end, advising them that they are being treated as a persistent or vexatious complainant and as such the Parish Council does not intend to engage in further correspondence dealing with the complaint.
• The Council may decline further contact with the complainant, either in person, by telephone, by letter or by e-mail or by any other means.
• The complainant will be informed that the Parish Council may seek legal advice on unreasonable or vexatious complaints.
• The Parish Council may suspend all contact with the complainant about the issues relating to the complaint being considered habitual and/or vexatious, while seeking advice or guidance from a solicitor or other relevant agency.
• The Clerk and the Chair of the Parish Council may invite the complainant to meet with them to discuss the matter if it is considered that there may be a way to resolve the issue.
• The complainant will be notified of the contact details of the Local Government Ombudsman and invited to contact that office if they wish to take the matter further.
• The Parish Council will be notified at its next meeting of any complaint that has been determined to be vexatious or habitual.
• If a complainant has verbally threatened or used physical violence towards staff or Councillors at any time, this will cause personal contact with the complainant or their representatives to be discontinued immediately and the complaint will thereafter only be addressed through written communication. All such instances will be documented and may be the subject of a report to the police.
• Once a complainant has been determined to be habitual and/or vexatious, their status will be kept under review. There will be an opportunity, however, if they subsequently demonstrate a more reasonable approach or if they submit a further complaint for which the normal complaints procedure would appear appropriate, to have their status reviewed and normal channels of communication may be resumed.

Legal references:

Under The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 the Council has a legal duty to

ensure so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of

its employees and Members.

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) section 14 public authorities do

not have to comply with vexatious requests.

The Protection from Harassment Act 1997 makes provision for protecting person.

Download a PDF of Complaints Policy and Procedure 2024