Comments, compliments and complaints

If you’re on a child protection plan, child in need plan, have been or are in care, and think that you have been treated unfairly you have the right to complain.

As a child or young person, you are allowed an advocate. An advocate can speak on your behalf to make sure that your views and feelings are heard.  

If you're a child or young person, you can give your feedback on our children's rights page. This page explains your rights as a child or young person and lists support services you’re entitled to. If you need help making a complaint you can also gain assistance through the children's rights page.

The Complaints and Compliments Team at West Northants Council manages the complaints process for Northamptonshire Children’s Trust under a service level agreement. This means we process your complaints here on our website via the complaint button below.

If you wish to challenge or complain about the conduct of a Child Protection Conference or a decision that has been made at a conference, there is a separate process that should be followed first. See Complaints in relation to Child Protection Conferences.

Our aim is to bring a swift and satisfactory resolution for people who have feedback or complaints about adult social care to help improve our performance for all service users, their families and carers.

Make a complaint via the make a comment, complaint or compliment button below.

Highway complaints are about the roads, floods, street lighting and the service you’ve received. We are committed to continuously improving our services so if you have a complaint about our Highways, we would like to hear about it.

If you have a complaint to make, the first step is to make us aware of the problem so that we have an opportunity to resolve the situation. This can be done by reporting a highway problem online or by emailing [email protected]. You can also report a broken streetlight. Reporting a problem is not the same as making a complaint.

Complaints about our service – You can make a complaint about the service you’ve received from our highways team via the ‘make a complaint’ button below.

You can make a complaint about any of our waste services by using the complaint button below. We work with different partners to help us deliver waste and environmental services in certain areas of the town. In the first instance we may ask the provider of the service to address your complaint and we will monitor their response.  

All complaints about contracted services will be shared with the Council’s Contract Managers and the responsible Head of Service.  

Our partners will keep you informed of the progress of your complaint and when you may expect a response.

West Northants Council is the overall governing body for the delivery of housing services. We work closely with our partners to monitor the handling of complaints and ensure a high standard of service for our residents.

The following housing services (which fall under the jurisdiction of the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman) are managed directly by the council and will follow the council’s complaints procedure.

• housing allocations
• temporary accommodation
• homelessness
• private sector housing

The following housing services (which fall under the jurisdiction of the Housing Ombudsman) are managed by Northamptonshire Partnership Homes (NPH). This is on behalf of the council as your landlord in Northampton, and by different providers in the rest of the county. Complaints about these services will be passed across to NPH to be responded to in the first instance.

• repairs and work being carried out to your home
• concerns about property condition
• issues about how your tenancy is being managed
• communal area cleaning
• tree and grounds maintenance
• rent payment and collection
• leasehold services
• how reported incidents on anti-social behaviour are managed
• mutual exchanges
• aids and adaptations

If you have already complained to your housing provider and / or the council about issues relating to your tenancy or Social Housing and you remain unhappy, then you may ask that the appropriate Ombudsman Service consider your complaint. Complaints about services provided by WNC in the first list above are regulated by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman. Complaints about services provided by NPH in the second list above are regulated by the Housing Ombudsman.

You can find more information about the services that are covered by each Ombudsman on their websites. Ombudsman for social housing complaints. (housing-ombudsman.org.uk)

If you need help making a complaint about one of our services, we have a independent advocacy page which explains how to contact an independent advocate and how you’ll be supported.  

The service is for people with physical or learning disabilities, older people, carers, and those with mental health needs. They will help you make informed choices and decisions about your wellbeing and social care.

Complaint (Stage 1)

We will acknowledge receipt of your complaint within 5 working days.

The complaint will be investigated by a senior member of staff, who may ask you for more information while dealing with your complaint.

We will provide a written response within 10 working days. If this is going to take longer, we will contact you to let you know when you can expect to hear from us.

Escalation (Stage 2)

If you are not satisfied with our first response, you can ask for a review of your complaint. You must do this within 20 working days of the response you originally received. This review will be carried out by an independent senior manager who will review the first response and provide a written response to the escalated complaint.

We will acknowledge this complaint within 3 working days and tell you who will be conducting the review.

We will provide a written response within 20 working days. If this is going to take longer, we will contact you to let you know when you can expect to hear from us.

If you are still unhappy

If you remain dissatisfied with both responses, you have the right to ask the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman to investigate the matter. The Ombudsman can investigate complaints about how the Council has done something or failed to do something.

They do not usually criticise the merits of a decision which has been properly taken simply because someone may disagree with it, but they will look at how a decision was made.

The Ombudsman will not usually consider a complaint until the Council has had a chance to resolve the matter through its own procedure.

Their contact details are:

• Local Government Ombudsman website
• Telephone: 0300 061 0614