Complaints Handling Procedure - BSL video

Transcript

Dumfries and Galloway Council is committed to providing high quality customer services.

We value complaints and use information from them to help us improve our services.

If something goes wrong or you are dissatisfied with our services, please tell us.

We regard a complaint as an expression of dissatisfaction about our action or lack of action, or about the standard of service provided by us or on our behalf.

You can make your complaint in person at any of our offices, by email, by phone, in writing or by completing our online complaints form on our website.

British Sign Language users can contact us by using Contact Scotland, the online British Sign Language interpreting video relay service. 

When complaining, please tell us:

• your full name and contact details
• how you would like us to contact you
• as much as you can about your complaint
• what has gone wrong; and
• what outcome you are seeking

You can complain anonymously but we won't be able to respond to you directly about your complaint without your contact details.

If you have specific needs, please tell us about your requirements and we will make reasonable adjustments where possible. For example, we welcome enquiries and complaints in all languages and can provide access to telephone interpretation support through Language Line Solutions.  

We understand that you may be unable or reluctant to make a complaint yourself. We accept complaints from the representative of a person who is dissatisfied with our service. We can take complaints from a friend, relative, or an advocate, if you have given them your consent to complain for you. 

Normally, you must make your complaint within six months of the event you want to complaint about. In special circumstances, we may be able to accept a complaint after the time limit. If you feel that the time limit should not apply to your complaint, please tell us why.

If your complaint relates to a care service, you can choose to complain to us or to the Care Inspectorate.

We have a two-stage complaints procedure.

Stage 1 - Frontline response

We will always try to respond to your complaint quickly, within five working days or less, if we can. If we can't respond to your complaint within 5 working days, we will let you know.

If it is clear your complaint requires investigation, we might move it directly to stage 2 straight away.

If you are unhappy with our stage 1 response, you should contact us as soon as possible and ask us to look at your complaint again at stage 2.

Stage 2 - Investigation

We will acknowledge receipt of your complaint within three working days. We may contact you to discuss your complaint and understand what you would like to happen. 

We will try to resolve your complaint where we can and where we cannot resolve your complaint, we will give you a full response as soon as possible, normally within 20 working days. 

If our investigation will take longer than 20 working days, we will tell you our revised timescales and keep you updated on progress. 

After we have given you our final response, if you are still dissatisfied with our decision or the way we dealt with your complaint, you can ask the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman in short, SPSO to look at it.

They can normally only look at your complaint after you have gone through our full complaints procedure.

The SPSO will ask you to complete a complaint form and provide a copy of our final response to your complaint.

We will tell you how to do this when we send you our final decision.

For more information see the making a complaint page on the council's website at dumgal dot gov dot uk, forward slash complaints, email comments and complaints all one word, at dumgal dot gov dot uk, or phone 01387 260467.