Education & Skills - Comments, compliments and complaints

Comments and compliments

Compliments regarding individual staff members will be sent to their line manager and details will be recorded on file. It is helpful to let professionals know when they have done a good job.

We will use your feedback to help improve the services that we provide.

Complaints

There is a different process to follow if you want to

For any other complaints please refer to the Corporate Complaints Policy.

A complaint is any expression of dissatisfaction of our services. You may consider that:

  • you have not been treated with courtesy and fairness
  • you are unhappy about the standard of service you have received
  • we have failed to provide a service to which you are entitled
  • you are unhappy about the action taken by us

We take your feedback about our services seriously and use it to improve the services that we provide.

It's better if you write to us about your complaint to make sure that we have all the details about everything that you are complaining about. If you need help to make a complaint, you can contact the Family Rights Group or the Citizen's Advice Bureau. If your complaint is related to SEND and Inclusion, you can contact SENDIASS.

Complaints process

You might find Department for Education's ‘Getting the Best from Complaints' a helpful guide to explaining the legislation and complaints process.

Stage 1: local resolution

Once your complaint is received you will receive an acknowledgement within 2 working days to notify you of who will be managing your complaint.

The manager handling your complaint will reply to you within 10 working days. If more time is needed to investigate your complaint, we will let you know and respond to your complaint within 20 working days.

Stage 2: investigation

If you are unhappy with the response from Stage 1, you can write to the Education and Skills Complaints Officer advising us of why you feel the Stage 1 response did not answer your complaint, and request an independent investigation. 

An Investigating Officer will be appointed to conduct an investigation, and an Independent Person will oversee the process and ensure that it is carried out fairly. The Investigating Officer will write a report on their findings. This report will be used as a basis for our response to you.

We will aim to write to you within 25 days (or 65 working days if there are complications).

Stage 3: review

If you are dissatisfied with the resolution provided at Stage 2 you can request that your complaint is escalated to Stage 3. In order to escalate your complaint, you must clearly state why you are not satisfied with our original response. The Council’s Corporate Customer Complaints Officer will assess your complaint for its suitability at Stage 3. The complaint will be investigated by an independent senior member of staff on behalf of the Chief Executive.