Compliments, complaints and feedback

We are committed to providing good quality services to residents, visitors, organisations and community groups and want you to be completely satisfied.

However, we know that sometimes things can go wrong. If this happens, please let us know, we want to understand what has happened, put things right where possible and learn from your experience to improve our services.

If you are dissatisfied with any aspect of our service, you have the right to make a complaint.

What is a complaint?

A complaint is an expression of dissatisfaction about the standard of service we have provided, actions we have taken, or decisions we have made.

However, not all issues raised with the Council will be treated as a formal complaint.

In many cases, your enquiry may be a service request, where you are asking us to:

• provide a service
• resolve a problem for the first time
• report an issue that we are not yet aware of

Examples of service requests include:

• reporting missed bins
• reporting litter or fly-tipping
• reporting noise or neighbour nuisance
• requesting a repair or inspection

These types of issues are usually resolved more quickly through our service teams and do not require the formal complaints process.

Reporting a service issue

To help us resolve issues as quickly as possible, we encourage you to report common issues using our Report it service, where you will find the relevant online report forms.

Report it

If you have already reported an issue and are dissatisfied with how it has been handled, you may then raise a formal complaint.

How to submit a complaint

We encourage you to contact the relevant service first, as many concerns can be resolved quickly at this stage.

If you remain dissatisfied, you can submit a formal complaint.

If you need support to make a complaint, or you’ve never made a complaint before, it might be best to ask an adult you trust to help you.

If you feel unable to make the complaint yourself, please phone 01522 881 188 and we will assist you.

Before you start

• Please include a clear description of the issue of your complaint, enclosing any copies of letters or notes made during personal visits or phone conversations, and any relevant dates and details etc.
• There are some things that we can’t deal with under our complaints procedure, but we will explain this to you and tell you about your rights when you contact us.
• If we require you to provide any additional information so we can deal with your complaint, investigation will be suspended and commence again once the information has been received.

Make a formal complaint

You can make a complaint:

• Online (complaint form)
• By email: complaints@lincoln.gov.uk
• By telephone: 01522 881188
• In writing: Customer Services Team, City Hall

Level One Complaints

• We will try to resolve your complaint with you. Your complaint will be acknowledged within 5 working days and you may be contacted by phone
• A line manager or appropriate officer will then respond fully in writing to you as soon as possible
• We respond to most complaints within three weeks
• If more time is required you will be kept informed as to when you can expect a response.

Level Two Complaints

A level 2 complaint review is a review of how your complaint was handled at Stage 1, checking that all issues were properly considered and the outcome is fair and reasonable. It is not a repeat of Stage 1, but we will investigate further if anything has been missed.

If you feel your complaint is not resolved by the answer you received you should contact us and:

• Provide us with the reasons you wish to escalate your complaint to a level two
• Provide any additional relevant information
• If we need any additional information we will contact you.
• Your complaint will be acknowledged and a senior manager will look into your complaint again. They will write to you as soon as possible with their findings.

What to do if you’re still not satisfied

The council’s complaints procedure ends at level two.

If you are still not satisfied you can then contact the relevant Ombudsman service, who will look into the merits of your complaint and may also investigate how we dealt with it.

Please note that the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman and Housing Ombudsman do suggest that you exhaust the organisation’s internal procedures first before contacting them directly. 

For General Complaints about the City of Lincoln Council

Contact the Local Government Ombudsman using the details provided to the right of this page. Or at the bottom of the page if you are using a mobile device. 

Lincoln Tenants Complaining about a Landlord 

For tenancy-related complaints by City of Lincoln tenants there are two routes you can take.

You can either:

1. Complain through the ‘Designated Person.' Current ‘Designated Persons’ are:

• The MP for Lincoln
• All City of Lincoln Council councillors
• The Designated Tenant’s Panel

A full list of council members is available at democratic.lincoln.gov.uk

OR

2. If you want to complain directly to the Housing Ombudsman Service you must wait eight weeks after the City of Lincoln Council complaints procedure has ended at level two.

You can find their contact details to the right of the page. Or at the bottom of the page if you are using a mobile device. 

Housing Ombudsman Self-Assessment 2024 - Complaints

Background 

The Housing Ombudsman published a new Complaint Handling Code in July 2020, setting out good practice that will allow landlords to respond to complaints effectively and fairly. The main areas in the code are:

•    Universal definition of a complaint
•    Providing easy access to the complaints procedure and ensuring residents are aware of it, including their right to access the Housing Ombudsman 
•    The structure of the complaints’ procedure - only two stages necessary and clear timeframes set out for responses
•    Ensuring fairness in complaint handling with a resident-focused process
•    Taking action to put things right and appropriate remedies
•    Creating a positive complaint handling culture through continuous learning and improvement
•    Demonstrating learning through various reports

Self-assessment 

As part of the requirements, the Housing Ombudsman asked landlords to complete a self-assessment form against the New Complaint Handling Code and publish the results to tenants. A working group of council officers, which included the Lincoln Tenants’ Panel, took part in the self-assessment to ensure tenants’ views were represented in the process.

View our annual self-assessment

What we found

From the self-assessment we carried out, the main findings were:

• The council’s complaints information is clear and easy to understand to enable residents to make a complaint via many accessible routes. The council’s complaints process is explained at the start of the complaint via the acknowledgement letter and at the end of both stages of process. In addition, residents are always advised on the options available to them should they not be satisfied at the end of both stage 1 and stage 2 of the council’s complaints process.    
• The Housing Complaints Officer acknowledges all complaints within five working days. 
• The investigating officers will continue to improve communication with complainants throughout the council’s complaints process.
• We recognise the need to learn more from our complaints and the need to know that all our customers are satisfied in the handling of their complaint.   
• The council works alongside the Housing Ombudsman by answering queries and requests for further information within the deadline.  If the specified deadline is not achievable, we will agree an extension.  

Recommendations 

We are confident that we already handle complaints in a fair and professional way, but the self-assessment highlighted a few areas where we could improve. To address this we have highlighted a number of internal recommendations and the council, along with the Lincoln Tenants’ Panel, will look to implement these.