Make a complaint

We strive to deliver the best possible value and service to our residents and visitors to the city and to deliver that service right first time.

We understand the value of any complaints we receive as they give us the opportunity to put things right, but also monitor our services and make changes where we need to.

What is a complaint?

• Dissatisfaction with our policies.
• Failure by the Council or its employees to respond to a reported problem.
• Failure to provide adequate standards of service.
• Delay or failure to provide a service.
• Dissatisfaction with a Council employee’s behaviour or attitude.

What is not a complaint?

• Informal, day to day issues that can be easily resolved.
• Reporting a problem or requesting a service first time.
• A request for information or explanation of policies or procedures.
• Appeals relating to regulatory activity where a statutory notice has been served (such as a Penalty Charge Notice (PCN). In these instances, the relevant legislated appeals process will apply.

Taxi complaints

Taxi complaints are handled by the Licensing Team.

Find out more about taxi complaints

Highways and pavement infrastructure

Essex County Council manage the highway and pavement infrastructure across Colchester, for example potholes or defective pavements.

You must direct any comments to Essex Highways.

Council owned housing complaints (Colchester Borough Homes)

Complaints relating to services provided by Colchester Borough Homes (CBH), whether carried out directly by CBH or on behalf of CBH are managed by CBH.

These include services provided to council tenants, leaseholders and other residents, including those using homelessness and housing options services. However, this excludes complaints regarding grounds maintenance (grass verges, hedges and shrub borders).

Log complaints for grounds maintenance

Visit Colchester Borough Homes complaints, compliments and comments web page for more information including the Housing Ombudsman's Complaint Handling Code and the online complaint form.

Waste Investigations Support and Enforcement (WISE)

We are working in partnership with the private sector enforcement provider Waste Investigations Support and Enforcement (WISE) to further tackle fly tipping, littering and dog fouling across the city.  

This new dedicated resource is part of a 12-month pilot that will see fixed penalty notices issued to those caught committing environmental crime in our communities. WISE will enforce all legislation in accordance with the law and in line with our service level agreement.  WISE officers will patrol the city and town centres, parks & green spaces and high footfall areas. The scheme comes at no additional cost to the Council and will actually see us generate money that we can invest back into the city. 

WISE Complaints

Any complaint against a WISE Officer should be made in writing to  ccc@wasteenforcement.co.uk or by telephone to 0333 577 2949.
 
Find further information about our Partnership with WISE.

How we handle complaints

We have a two-stage process for handling official complaints, which allows for more senior levels of management to review the situation if you are still not satisfied.

Stage 1

1. Submit your complaint with as much information as you can including dates, times, any officer name(s), etc.
2. We will acknowledge your complaint within 5 days and forward it to a manager or officer that deals with the service the complaint is about.
3. The investigation will be done by someone who has not been involved already and will send you the outcome within 10 working days of receiving your complaint.
4. If longer is needed, we will notify you of this and provide a date we will respond to you by. Where appropriate, your complaint may be reviewed by an officer or manager in another department.

Stage 2

If you disagree with our response, you can submit an appeal and your complaint will be reviewed by a member of our Senior Management Team.

You must give us the original complaint reference with your appeal, which will be on all our correspondence sent to you. If you do not provide this, your complaint will be considered a new complaint. 

We will send you the outcome of the Stage 2 review within 4 weeks or, if more time is needed, write to let you know when a response will be sent.

Read our Complaints Policy (PDF, 205KB)

Submit an official complaint

If you have already contacted our services to try and resolve your issue and remain dissatisfied with their response, you may decide that you want to submit an official complaint to us.

Submit a complaint 

Submit an appeal

If you have received a response to a Stage 1 complaint and you disagree with the outcome of our investigation, or you are unhappy with the way your complaint has been handled, you can submit an appeal which will be investigated by a member of our Senior Management Team.

You must include the reference number of your previous Stage 1 complaint when asked.

Submit an appeal

What to do if you are still not satisfied

If you have followed both stages of our complaints process and you are still not satisfied, you can ask the Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman to review your complaint.