How do I complain about a council or another public body?

Complaining about a public body is a different exercise from complaining about a shop. The ombudsman schemes look for maladministration — a failure in how a decision was made or a service delivered — rather than simply disagreeing with the outcome. Framing the complaint around process rather than result is what separates the ones that go somewhere from the ones that do not.

Step by step

1. Check whether there is an appeal route instead.Many decisions — benefits, council tax bands, planning, school places — have a formal appeal or tribunal route. Ombudsmen will normally decline where an appeal right existed, so use the right door.
2. Find the body's published complaints procedure.Almost all run a two-stage process with stated timescales. Following it exactly matters, because the ombudsman will check that you did.
3. Write stage one as a factual chronology.Dates, what happened, who you dealt with, what should have happened, and the effect on you. Keep it to a page where you can, with documents attached rather than quoted at length.
4. Say what you want.An apology, a decision remade, a service delivered, a payment for the time and distress caused. A complaint with no requested remedy invites a reply that acknowledges and does nothing.
5. Focus on how, not just what.Delay, failure to follow their own policy, failure to give reasons, losing documents, not responding — these are the failures ombudsmen act on. 'I disagree with the decision' alone rarely is.
6. Escalate to stage two if unsatisfied.Say why the stage one answer does not address the complaint. Simply repeating the complaint tends to produce the same reply.
7. Take it to the right ombudsman.Councils and adult social care in England go to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman. Government departments and the NHS in England go to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, which requires an MP referral for the parliamentary side. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own single schemes.
8. Check the time limit.Ombudsman schemes have limits on how long after the events you can complain, with discretion in some cases. Check the current limit on the scheme's own site.
9. Send a clean bundle.Your complaint, the body's replies, and the key documents in date order. Investigators handle large caseloads; an organised submission is genuinely read differently.
10. Keep paying or complying meanwhile.A complaint does not suspend a bill or a legal obligation. Deal with those separately so the complaint is about the issue and nothing else.

Tips

• Ask for the body's own policy document and quote back where they departed from it. That is the single most effective move in a public-sector complaint.
• Every ombudsman scheme is free. Anyone charging to make a complaint for you is selling something you can do yourself.
• Keep the complaint about one clearly defined failure. A complaint listing fifteen grievances gets a reply that addresses the weakest one.

Common mistakes

• Going to the ombudsman first — They will send it back for the internal process to be completed, which costs weeks and can put you against a time limit.
• Complaining about the outcome rather than the process — Ombudsmen do not substitute their judgement for a lawful decision. They look at whether the decision was made properly, which is a different argument.

If it doesn't work

Questions people ask