Royal Borough complaints

If you have a complaint about a service, please first complain to the service directly as outlined below.

Information on contacting the Local Government Ombudsman is also further down this page.

If you want to comment or complain about a particular Royal Borough service, you should contact the service directly in the first instance.

Use our A-Z of services to find the service that you wish to complain about. Those links will take you to contact details for providers of that service.

If the problem is not resolved to your satisfaction you can make a formal complaint.

Making a formal complaint

You can either complain directly to a particular Royal Borough department or complete one of our Complaints forms.

If you are unsure of who to complain to, call the Contact Centre. Contact Centre staff can log a complaint on your behalf. You can also visit the service centres at either The Woolwich Centre or The Eltham Centre.

How your complaint is handled:

• we will try to confirm that we have received your complaint within five working days
• your complaint will be investigated by the manager of the service concerned
  
• the manager will normally send you a full written reply within 15 working days of getting your complaint or let you know when you should expect a full response.

The role of the Complaints Officer

If you are not happy with our response, you can ask for a review of your complaint by a more senior manager.

Details of who to contact will be in our written reply to you, or you can contact the Complaints Officer for the relevant service. The Complaints Officer will:

• confirm that they have received your complaint within five working days
• arrange for your complaint to be considered by a more senior member of staff. You will be given their name and they will normally send you a full written reply within 20 working days.

Further appeal

The Complaints Officer will tell you how you can appeal to the Chief Executive of the Royal Borough of Greenwich. You should appeal within four weeks of receiving the second response to your complaint.

The Chief Executive will investigate your complaint for a final time. You will be informed that the Chief Executive has received your complaint within five working days.

The Chief Executive will normally send you a full written reply within 30 working days.

Local Government Ombudsman

If, at the end of the complaints process, you are still not satisfied with the Royal Borough's response, you can go to the independent Local Government Ombudsman who decides upon complaints against councils.

The Ombudsman will usually reject complaints that have not completed all of the Royal Borough's complaints stages.

If your complaint concerns Housing Associations, housing companies and some other private landlords, but not complaints about Royal Borough housing, you need to contact the Independent Housing Ombudsman.

During the complaints process, you can contact the Customer Services team at any stage for advice or help.