Ways to complaint

Service users can complain in the following ways:-

§         completing a Complaints  form

§         in person

§         by letter

§         by email

§         by telephone

§         by fax

§         completing a complaints form

§         by contacting Northline

We want to resolve complaints as early as possible and the majority of complaints received will be resolved quickly and at the point of service delivery.  At this point services will be responsible for investigating their own complaints and where appropriate, recording the details in the Customer Relationship Management system.

The table below outlines the stages of North Lanarkshire Council's complaints procedure for non statutory complaints:-

Stage	Process	Responsibility for response	Response Time
Stage 1 – Complaint	Service investigates	Manager or appropriate officer	Acknowledgement – 5 calendar days.   Response – 14 calendar days
Stage 2 – Appeal Non-statutory complaints	3rd Tier Officer reviews decision	3rd Tier Officer	Acknowledgement – 5 calendar days   Response (interim or final) – 28 calendar days
Stage 3 – Review	Head of Service reviews the decision.	Head of Service	Acknowledgement – 5 calendar days.   Response – 28 calendar days
Stage 3 – Social Work only	However, a complaint about Social Work Services reaching this stage would allow the complainant the opportunity to request a Complaints Review Committee which will be convened through the appropriate channels.

Should the Chief Executive receive complaints about services, the Corporate Service Improvement Team will acknowledge the complaint, record the details in the Customer Relationship Management system and send the details of the complaint to the service within the agreed timescales.

 Timescales