Adult Social Care invoices
Invoices have now been issued following a short delay, and associated direct debit collection dates will be adjusted accordingly. There is no need to contact us at this time.
What are complaints?
In this section
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1Introduction
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2Legal Context
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3Scope
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4Who can make a complaint
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5Help to make a complaint
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6What are complaints?
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7Providing information
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8How to make a complaint
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9What the council does when it receives a complaint
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10What to do if concerned about the progress or final outcome of a complaint
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11When the council will not/may not act on a complaint
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12The Care Quality Commission (CQC) and complaints about regulated providers
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13Complaints records and the annual report
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14Implementing, monitoring and reviewing policy
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15Appendix 1 – Definitions
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16Appendix 2
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17Appendix 3 – Additional examples of exclusions
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18Appendix 4 – Care Act Advocacy for Adult Social Care processes including complaints (taken from GCC’s Independent Advocacy Policy)
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19Appendix 5 - Reasonable adjustments examples and accessible information standard
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20Appendix 6 - Lessons learned log
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21Policy details
Key terms are identified in bold and defined in Appendix 1.
6.1 Not every comment, concern or problem is a complaint:
The Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman defines complaints as:
“an expression of dissatisfaction, however made, about decisions, the standard of service, actions or lack of action by the organisation, its own staff, or those acting on its behalf, affecting an individual or group of individuals ”.
6.2 This means that anyone who feels disappointed by the service they’ve received, or by something the council has done or failed to do, has the right to raise a complaint.
6.3 Sometimes, someone might contact the council to ask for a service, suggest an improvement, or report a problem. These are usually considered service requests, not complaints.
Examples include:
- asking for a service to be provided
- suggesting how a service could be improved
- reporting something that needs fixing
These are not treated as complaints unless the person is unhappy with how the council has responded to their request or concern. If they feel the issue hasn’t been resolved properly, it may then become a complaint.
Policy Published: October 2021
Policy reviewed: April 2026
Last reviewed: