How to Complain

Key steps to making a complaint:

1. First complain to the organisation involved

• First complain to the organisation involved to give them a chance to put things right 
• You should go through all stages of their complaints procedure

See also: Top tips for making a complaint

2. Complain to us

• If your problem has not been put right
• If you have not had a response within a reasonable time. This should usually be within 12 weeks but may be longer for social care complaints that follow a statutory process

3. Be aware there are some things we cannot look at

In most cases, you will need to have:

• complained to us within 12 months of becoming aware of the matter
• been directly affected by the matter - we call this 'personal injustice'

4. Dealing with your complaint

• We will take a first look at your complaint and advise on the next steps 
• Then we will assess whether we can and should investigate
• If we investigate, we may ask you and the organisation for more information 
• We publish our final decisions on our website. We don’t use real names