Complaints / Compliments
Carmarthenshire County Council is committed to dealing effectively with any complaints you may have about our services.
We aim to clarify any issues you may be unsure about. If possible, we’ll put right any mistakes we may have made.
We will provide any service you’re entitled to which we have failed to deliver.
If we did something wrong, we’ll apologise and, where possible, try to put things right for you.
We aim to learn from our mistakes and use the information we gain from complaints to improve our services.
If you are approaching us to request a service, for example reporting a faulty streetlight, or ordering blue bags, this policy doesn’t apply. To request a service, you can:
- Find the service you would like to report on our Report It webpage
- Find the service you would like to apply for on our Apply/Request webpage
- If neither of the above show the service you are looking for, contact our Contact Centre Team on 01267 234567, Monday to Friday, 8:30am to 6:00pm
However, if you make a request for a service and then are not happy with our response, you will be able to make your complaint known.
For specific information on how to make a complaint regarding Social Services please visit our Social Care Services Complaints & Compliments webpage.
This policy does not apply to Freedom of Information, Subject Access or other information rights issues.
Please contact foia@carmarthenshire.gov.uk in relation to these matters.
There are also other organisations that consider complaints, for example, the Welsh Language Commissioner.
We can advise you about such organisations.
The Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 established a legal framework to impose duties on certain organisations to comply with standards in relation to the Welsh language by way of sub-legislation (Welsh Language Regulation Standards).
Any complaints in relation to the Welsh language or services provided through the medium of Welsh will follow the same approach identified throughout this policy.
All Welsh language complaints are reported in the council's annual Welsh language standards report.
All the information relating to Carmarthenshire County Council's implementation of the standards and annual reports can be viewed online.
You are welcome to express your concerns or complain to us through the medium of Welsh.
Whether about the council itself, a person acting on its behalf, or a partnership, a complaint is:
- an expression of dissatisfaction or concern
- either written or spoken or made by any other communication method
- made by one or more members of the public
- about the Council’s action or lack of action
- about the standard of service provided
A complaint is not:
- an initial request for a service, such as reporting a missed bin collection
- an appeal against a properly made decision
- a means to seek change to legislation or a properly made policy decision
- a means for lobbying groups/organisations to seek to promote a cause
When you complain to us, we will usually respond to you as set out in our Complaints’ Policy.
However, sometimes you may have a statutory right of appeal, examples include, but aren’t limited to:
- Planning decisions
- Parking fines
- A decision not to give your child a place in a particular school
In cases like this, rather than investigate your complaint, we will explain to you how you can appeal.
Where there are ongoing legal proceedings or another type of investigation, we may need to put a complaint “on hold” until these are concluded.
Sometimes, you might be concerned about matters that are not covered by this policy. Examples include, but aren’t limited to:
- Insurance claims
- Complaints about a School, County Councillor, Town or Community Councils
- Employment issues, including complaints about Council employees outside of the workplace which don’t relate to the delivery of a service
- Reports of anti-social behaviour
- Allegations of serious officer misconduct and criminal activity
The Complaints Team will be happy to advise you about how to pursue a complaint like this and can also give clear advice about the type and scope of complaints we can consider.
Normally, we will only be able to look at your complaint if you tell us about it within 6 months. This is because it’s better to investigate your complaint while the issues are still fresh in everyone’s mind.
We may exceptionally be able to look at complaints which are brought to our attention later than this. However, you will have to explain why you have not been able to bring it to our attention earlier and we will need to have sufficient information about the issue to allow us to consider it properly.
In any event, we will not consider any complaint about matters that took place more than twelve months ago.
If you’re expressing a complaint on behalf of somebody else, we’ll need their agreement to you acting on their behalf.
We will acknowledge your complaint within 5 working days, explain how it will be handled, and respect any communication needs you may have.
If your complaint involves another organisation, we will work with them to agree who takes the lead and keep you informed. Where it concerns a contractor or service working on our behalf, we will investigate and respond directly.
If possible, we believe it is best to deal with things straight away.
If you have a complaint, please raise it with the person you are dealing with. They will try to resolve it for you there and then.
The Complaints Team is notified of all complaints and will assist with co‐ordinating a response. At this stage, we will aim to deal with your complaint as quickly as possible and within 10 working days.
If there are any lessons to learn from addressing your complaint, the member of staff that dealt with your complaint will draw them to the Complaints Team’s attention.
If it is not possible to resolve your complaint at this stage, you can then ask for a formal investigation.
If your complaint needs a formal investigation, we’ll confirm our understanding of your concerns and the outcome you’re hoping for.
An investigator (from the service area, elsewhere in the Council, or independent if necessary) will review relevant evidence and may contact you directly.
We aim to resolve most complaints within 20 working days, keeping you updated if it takes longer.
In some cases, we may suggest a simple solution, a meeting, or mediation to resolve the matter.
If we formally investigate your complaint, we will let you know what we find. If necessary, we will produce a report. We’ll explain how and why we came to our conclusions.
If we find that we made a mistake, we’ll tell you what happened and why.
If we find there is a fault in our systems or the way we do things, we’ll tell you what it is and how we plan to change things to stop it happening again.
If we make a mistake, we will always apologise for it.
We take your complaints seriously and we hope that our system will help you to sort out any problems quickly and successfully. However, if we fail in resolving your complaint, you may complain to the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales.
The Ombudsman expects you to bring your concerns to our attention first and to give us a chance to put things right. The Ombudsman is independent of all government bodies.
The contact details for the Ombudsman are below:
Address: The Public Services Ombudsman for Wales, 1 Ffordd yr Hen Gae, Pencoed, Bridgend, CF35 5LJ
Tel: 0300 790 0203
Email: ask@ombudsman.wales
