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How to make a complaint about our social care services

You can make a complaint in person, or by letter, email or telephone. We have a simple three stage procedure.

If you would like to contact the Complaints Manager to discuss your concerns or make a complaint about social care, you can contact them on 023 9284 1172 or email at socialcare.comments@portsmouthcc.gov.uk.

Stage 1

We will acknowledge your complaint within two working days and try to respond to your concerns within 10 working days. If we need more time, we can extend our timescale up to 20 working days in total. Once we send you a response, you will have 20 working days from the date of the response letter to ask us to take your complaint to the next stage if you are still not happy.

Stage 2

At this stage, a person who is independent of us may be able to review your complaint. They will speak with you and then investigate the matter further and will produce a report saying if they agree with your complaint. If so, they may recommend what we should do to put things right. Although we do not have to follow these recommendations, we take them very seriously. Once the head of service has responded to you at stage two, if you are still not happy you will have 20 working days from the date the response letter is sent to you to ask us to consider your complaint at the next stage.

Stage 3

If you are still not satisfied, you can ask a review panel to review the investigator’s work at stage two and assess the decision the investigator made. They will then say if they agree with the decision and if not they may make recommendations. Again, although we do not have to follow these recommendations we would take them very seriously.

Local Government Ombudsman

The Local Government Ombudsman is an independent national service that investigates complaints against councils. You can complain to them at any time, but they will usually refer the complaint back to us if it has not been through our complaints procedure. You can contact them at:

Jerry White
Local Government Ombudsman
The Oaks
2 Westwood Way
Westwood Business Park
Coventry, CV4 8JB

You can call them on 024 7682 0000 and you can visit their website, use the external link.

Associated documents:

• Comment, compliment or complaint leaflet  (0.32 MB)

• Comment, compliment or complaint leaflet for children supported by social care  (0.22 MB)

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