Complaints and feedback

Submit a complaint or concern

Before making a formal complaint, you should contact the relevant service area to give them an opportunity to put things right. This is the quickest route to getting the issue resolved.

Common issues include:

For complaint types that fall outside this process, see details of when our complaints policy and procedure does not apply.

Your complaint may be rejected if you do not use the correct complaints process.

If you still want to log a formal complaint

If you have already made the service aware of the issue and they haven’t been able to resolve it, you can make a formal complaint.

The quickest way to do this is using one of our online forms. Before you submit your complaint, we recommend you read our guide to making an effective complaint.

Make a formal complaint about a council service
Make a formal complaint about children’s social care services
Make a formal complaint about adult social care services

Make a formal complaint about a council service

We will do our best to resolve your complaint to your satisfaction. We will do this by following our complaints policy and procedure - the 4Cs toolkit.

Stage 1: We aim to assess, acknowledge and allocate your complaint within 5 working days. After that, we aim to investigate, conclude and respond within 10 working days.
Stage 2: We aim to assess, acknowledge and allocate your complaint within 5 working days. After that, we aim to investigate, conclude and provide a full written response within 20 working days.

If you're still unhappy you can contact the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.

To share your complaint or concern please complete our online form:

Raise a comment, compliment, complaint or concern

Alternatively, contact our Complaints, Feedback and Compliance Team by email or telephone.

If contacting the team by telephone, you can leave a voicemail detailing what went wrong, what impact this has had on you and, what we can do to put things right.

We're committed to:

ensuring how we work doesn’t place disabled people at a disadvantage
removing barriers our customers face when accessing our services
making reasonable adjustments

If you need a reasonable adjustment to access our service, please let us know.

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Make a formal complaint about children’s social care services

An effective complaints procedure ensures children’s voices are heard, and that as a result service delivery will improve.

How to complain

You can submit your complaint online, but please read the following important information first.

This process is for children's social care complaints only.

If your complaint is about a school, you must follow the school complaints procedure.

If your complaint is about educational matters such as SEND, school admissions or children's centres you must follow the procedure to make a formal complaint about a council service.

Advocacy

We want to make sure that anyone can complain to us. If you are a young person who needs help to complain, let us know when you send us a complaint and we'll contact Speak Up, York’s Children’s Rights and Advocacy service.

What happens next

If you have a complaint about children’s social care services, we'll try to address your concerns as soon as possible.

There are 3 stages to our complaints process.

Stage 1 - local resolution:

We expect to resolve most of our complaints at this point. A complaints and feedback advisor will work with the team manager of the service to provide a response. This should be completed in 10 working days. This can be extended for a further 10 days if the complaint is complex.

If a response is not completed within timescales, or you feel that your complaint has not been resolved at stage 1, you can request that your complaint is considered at stage 2.

Stage 2 - investigation:

An investigating officer will work alongside an independent person to investigate your complaint. They will discuss your complaint with you and the outcomes you would like to see. They will then meet with staff involved in your case and view the relevant documents. The investigating officer will write a report including details of their findings, whether they are upheld or not upheld, and recommendations on how to put things right.

The investigation should be completed within 20 working days. This may be extended to a maximum of 65 days.

Stage 3 - review panel:

If you are not satisfied with how we have handled your complaint at the end of stage 2, you can request that it is considered by a review panel. This involves 3 independent people meeting with you, the investigating officers and a senior manager. The panel will review the complaints process and make recommendations.

If you are still unhappy after stage 3, you can take your complaint to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.

To share your complaint or concern please complete our online form:

Raise a comment, compliment, complaint or concern

Alternatively, contact our Complaints, Feedback and Compliance Team by email or telephone.

If contacting the team by telephone, you can leave a voicemail detailing what went wrong, what impact this has had on you and, what we can do to put things right.

We're committed to:

ensuring how we work doesn’t place disabled people at a disadvantage
removing barriers our customers face when accessing our services
making reasonable adjustments

If you need a reasonable adjustment to access our service, please let us know.

Top of page

Make a formal complaint about adult social care services

Knowing about any problems you have with your adult social care service gives us the opportunity to put it right and to make sure our systems are improved for the future.

How to complain

You can submit your complaint online, but please read the following important information first.

If you are complaining on behalf of someone else, for example, a relative, carer or friend, we will need proof that the individual has given consent to act on their behalf. Acceptable forms of proof include:

a signed letter from the individual authorising you to act on their behalf and their agreement that we can share their personal and sensitive information with you
a copy of any lasting power of attorney certificates demonstrating your legal authority to represent them

You will be prompted to upload this proof during the online process. We may contact the person you represent to confirm their consent for you to act for them.

What happens next

We'll acknowledge your complaint within 3 working days and try to address your concerns as soon as possible.

We expect to respond to you within 25 working days, but will let you know if our response is likely to take longer.

If you complain about our services we will:

investigate the complaint fully and write to you with a full response within 25 days or within an agreed timeframe
tell you what we have done as result of your complaint
explain the appeals process if you are not happy with the response

If you're unhappy with our response, you can take your complaint to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.

Advocacy

If you need independent help to complain, you can contact the York Advocacy Hub.

To share your complaint or concern please complete our online form:

Raise a comment, compliment, complaint or concern

Alternatively, contact our Complaints, Feedback and Compliance Team by email or telephone.

If contacting the team by telephone, you can leave a voicemail detailing what went wrong, what impact this has had on you and, what we can do to put things right.

We're committed to: