Complaints about council services 

We welcome feedback about the services we provide and how they can be improved:

Reporting problems

You can report issues online such as missed bins, noise, pollution, pests, and others:

Compliments and positive feedback

You can either submit a compliment form or contact departments directly if you wish to leave compliments or positive feedback for a service you have received:

Complaints procedure

Warwick District Council accepts that occasionally things can go wrong. If they do, we need to know so that we can put them right and learn from them.

Before making a complaint, you may wish to try to resolve the matter informally by talking to the staff you were dealing with on the query. However, if you are still unhappy, you can make your complaint by:

If you need assistance making your complaint you can ask a representative or advocate such as a family member or friend, a representative of the Citizen’s Advice Bureau or even a local Councillor, Member of Parliament etc. A complaint that is submitted via a third party or representative will still be handled in line with the complaints policy. However, it should be noted that we cannot respond to a representative without the complainant providing signed authorisation.

The council aims to investigate and report on complaints within 10 working days at Stage 1 and 20 working days at Stage 2. However, there are certain complaints that will be prioritised, investigated and reported on within 5 working days. These are:

  • Homelessness, either currently or imminently
  • Children and young people up to 21 years of age or 25 if disabled, and
  • Where the particular circumstances identify vulnerability and/or a need for urgency

The stages of investigation are:

  • Stage 1 – internally by an officer from the department, the complaint is about
  • Stage 2 – if unhappy with the outcome of the stage 1 investigation, the complainant can ask the Chief Executive for an investigation by an officer from outside the department
  • If unhappy with the conclusion of the stage 2 investigation, the complainant can progress the complaint to the Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman, Housing Ombudsman or Information Commissioner, as set out below.

The majority of complaints will be because of dissatisfaction with a service, policy, or officer of the council. This process is also used to investigate any allegations of discrimination by the council, along with breaches of the Data Protection or Freedom of Information Acts.

There are different considerations for complaints about council officers, which will be explained to the complainant when the complaint is made.

When the council accepts that an error has been made, the overriding principle will be, where possible, to try and return the complainant to the position they would have been in if there had not been a mistake or error by the council.

Some matters are excluded from this complaint policy to enable effective service delivery and for legal reasons. These are:

  • if there is a statutory recourse for the matter, for example, the right to appeal a Licensing Panel decision to the magistrates
  • if this is the first time the council became aware of the matter with regard to the provision of service, for example, a bin having not been emptied, or
  • any complaint regarding a councillor, which must be submitted to the Monitoring Officer as set out below.  

Local Government Ombudsman & Information Commissioner

If Warwick District Council does not resolve a complaint to your satisfaction, you may take your complaint to the Local Government Ombudsman. However, if the council has not resolved your complaint regarding Freedom of Information or Data Protection, you need to contact the Information Commissioner.

Housing Ombudsman

Some complaints about social housing are overseen by the Housing Ombudsman. These include complaints arising between tenants and Warwick District Council as a landlord.  

Complaint handling code

The Housing Ombudsman publishes a Complaint Handling Code, which helps us to respond to complaints effectively and fairly.

As part of the Code, we must complete a self-assessment. Our latest self-assessment is published here: Housing complaints self-assessment, June 2024.

Complaints about councillors

You can complain to the council that a councillor has not observed the statutory Code of Conduct for Members (103kb, PDF).

Visit the Standards Committee page for details on how to complain about the conduct of district, town, or parish councillors. 

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