Complaints and Compliments

How do I send a compliment or comment?

You can send a compliment or a comment to any team in Surrey. You can email their generic email, the person directly or their manager. We can help to find the correct email address if needed.

To send a compliment or comment to SEND Advice Surrey team please email sendadvice@surreycc.gov.uk or leave a message on 01737 737300. The team collate and summarise their compliments and thanks on appreciation cards.

How can I complain?

The person who makes the complaint must either be the person receiving the services or a person complaining on behalf of the person receiving the services. This can include children and young people, their parents, carers or legal guardians or someone who has the permission of the person receiving the services to represent them.

For a Surrey County Council specific complaint you should use the online complaint form.

You can contact your local County Councillor to make enquiries on your behalf.

You can also write to your politicians, national or local, for free

Children's social care, education and SEND

This section is about how to make a complaint about the following services:

• SEND provision and associated transport and 16+ team
• Education Welfare
• Inclusions
• Virtual school
• Access to Education (A2E)
• Elective Home Education (EHE)
• Early Years
• Youth Support
• Youth Justice

How to make a complaint

If things do go wrong, Surrey Local Authority (LA) have a complaints procedure you can use to have them look into your complaint and put matters right as quickly as they can. It is important to make your complaint as soon as possible because they may not be able to consider your complaint if it is about something that happened over 12 months ago.

All complaints now go through the Customer Relations Team. They would ideally like you to use the online complaint form so that one team is able to track and monitor all complaints coming into the LA.

Please note that this online form times out after 40 minutes so you may wish to type your information onto a Word document so you can copy and paste it into the form before your time runs out. Your complaint is not registered until you have a reference number allocated to you.

Complaint process

Stage 1 – Local resolution

Complaints are first responded to by the responsible service area that you are complaining about because Surrey want to resolve complaints quickly and as close to the point of service they can.

Their aim is to provide a full response within 10 working days. If they are due to take longer, they must let you know. They will also tell you how to progress your complaint if you remain unhappy. When you make a complaint it is worth recording when the 10 days are up and chase if there is no response. A reply should be received without unnecessary delay.

If you can't use the online tool, you could complain in person, over the telephone or in writing but the online form will ensure that nothing is missed or lost.

We advise that your stage 1 complaint is in writing where possible in an email or letter, so you have proof it was sent. We also advise you include 'Stage 1 complaint' as a subject title. If it's in person ask for the LA to record your conversation in writing.

Reply time: You will receive an automatic reply that states that the LA have 20 days to reply however this is only for complaints about Social Care. (The form is for countywide services). The LA should confirm the 10 day reply time for education when they respond.

Address: Customer Relations Team, 1st Floor, Quadrant Court, Guildford Road, Woking, GU22 7QQ.

Text: 07806 846386

Email: be.heard@surreycc.gov.uk

What information do you need to provide?

For your complaint to be dealt with quicker it would be useful to provide as much information as possible whilst sticking to the point. Remember to include:

• Where the incident or event took place
• Relevant dates
• Names of council staff involved
• Any reference numbers you may have been given
• The service you were expecting to receive and how that differed from the service you received
• You can also explain briefly what you think Surrey should do to put the matter right or how they could have done things differently. You can also write things down in chronological order (see table below).

You could use bullet points to get your point across.

Important: Once you complete the online form a reference will be generated in the subject line – a 'Complaint reference number'. It is important to include this with any further emails you send (by replying to the email). This way all correspondence will be linked to your complaint.

At any point you have an issue you can email be.heard@surreycc.gov.uk but explain there has been an issue and what that issue is.

Stage 2 – Review

Stage 2 deals with two types of complaint:

1. those that have not been resolved at Stage 1
2. those that are complex and require detailed investigation. The purpose is to establish if there has been any fault by the council in delivering its services.

Your complaint will be passed to a Customer Relations Officer who should be independent of the service you are complaining about. They will review your complaint and explore your concerns in more detail.

This can lead to:

1. a referral back to the service you are complaining about with a request to reconsider all or specific parts of your complaint a mediated meeting offered or
2. in exceptional circumstances a full investigation

If Surrey decide to carry out a further investigation, they will aim to provide a response within 20 working days. If the investigator needs to confirm the details of your complaint with you it will be 20 working days from that point. (There is no timescale for the investigator to ask you for more details). A reply should be received without unnecessary delay.

If, for any reason, the investigator is unable to keep to this timescale they should let you know and keep you updated.

Sometimes complaints need a formal investigation or review so an Independent Complaints Investigator may be employed or instructed to help in some cases.

At a stage 2 complaint it is standard practice for yourselves (as the complainant) and the investigator (internal or external) to agree a summarised statement of your concerns and issues.

This can be written as bullet points outlining the main issues of the complaint. You would then write a formal letter or email to sit alongside the agreed statement of the complaint.

This summarised statement will ensure that the investigator has understood the points of your concern correctly so they can investigate the complaint.

You can also add a list of what has happened in chronological order (latest/newest at the top moving down in history). This would also be useful moving forward for Court Hearings or other complaints.

An example of this could be as follows:

Date	What happened	Outcome
Monday 8 May 2019	Annual review	See notes from meeting. LA to look at other schools. Plan to be updated with new Educational Psychologist (EP) report.

After you have made your complaint or at any time during your complaint

You can contact the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGO) at any time but they are the final stage for complaints about councils. They will normally expect you to have completed all stages of our complaints procedure before considering your complaint: They are the final stage for complaints about councils.

Address: PO Box 4771, Coventry, CV4 0EH.

Phone: 0300 061 0614

Text: 'call back' to 0762 481 1595.

Schools

Maintained Schools

Firstly, you should get a copy of the Schools Complaint policy. This should be on their website. (Sometimes it is best to search for the school's Complaints Policy as sometimes the policy is well hidden).

In accordance with Section 29(1) of the Education Act 2002, all maintained schools and maintained nursery schools must have and publish procedures to deal with all complaints relating to their school and to any community facilities or services that the school provides, for which there are no separate (statutory) procedures.

Surrey's model complaints procedure is as follows:

Stage 1

Express concern to appropriate member of school staff. This maybe the Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCO). If no satisfactory outcome then move to stage 2.

Stage 2

Contact the Headteacher to investigate complaint. If no satisfactory outcome then move to stage 3.

Stage 3

Contact the Chair of Governors to investigate complaint. If no satisfactory outcome then move to stage 4.

Stage 4

Contact the Clerk to Governors for a complaint review by governors.

You can also request the LA Area Schools Officer (ASO) to assist with resolving concerns and/or complaint if the school 'buys in' to their support.

You could write to the Secretary of State for Education. The Secretary of State is responsible for the work of the Department for Education, including:

• early years
• children's social care
• teachers' pay
• the school curriculum
• school improvement
• academies and free schools
• further education
• higher education and
• apprenticeships and skills.

You can complete the online GOV.UK complaints form

You can also complete the online Ofsted complaints form

Ofsted will not usually consider a complaint if you have not first followed the school's or academy's, local authority's or Education Skills and Funding Agency's complaints procedure. This includes writing to the Secretary of State for Education.

Academy/Free School

If the school is an academy and you feel that the governing body or board of trustees have acted unreasonably about your concerns, you can write to the Education Skills and Funding Agency (ESFA):

The Education and Skills Funding Agency
Cheylesmore House
Quinton Road
Coventry
CV1 2WT

Or email: complaints.ESFA@education.gov.uk

Independent school or a place that provides education only for students aged over 16

Ofsted cannot consider complaints about independent schools or places that provide education only for people over the age of 16. Independent School Inspectorate (ISI) carry out inspections.

For independent schools you should write to the school first. Further guidance on complaints procedures for independent schools can be found on the GOV.UK website.

For provisions that provide education only for people over the age of 16, you should write to the provision first. If you are unhappy with their response, you can send your complaint in writing to:

The Education and Skills Funding Agency
Cheylesmore House
Quinton Road
Coventry
CV1 2WT

Or email: complaints.ESFA@education.gov.uk

Local authority non-compliance with the Data Protection or Freedom of Information Acts

If you feel that the local authority has been non-compliant with the Data protection Act or the Freedom of Information Act, your first point of call is the Information Commissioners Office (ICO).

SEND Advice Surrey

Please contact the SEND Advice Manager in the first place to discuss your complaint. To do this you can email sendadvice@surreycc.gov.uk or call 01737 737300 and ask for a call back.

If you are not happy with this reply you can complete the Surrey County Council online portal for it to be dealt with by the Customer Relations Team.

It is important to make your complaint as soon as possible.

NHS

You have the right to make a complaint about any aspect of NHS care, treatment or service, and this is written into the NHS Constitution (GOV.UK).

More information on complaining about the NHS can be found on the NHS website.

Adult Social Care

If you want to make a complaint, you can:

• talk to the member of staff you have most contact with, so they can try to resolve any issues or address your concerns
• talk or write to the manager of the team you have been dealing with
• fill in and submit the Adult social care complaint form
• email Adult Social Care Customer Relations Team on: asc.customerrelations@surreycc.gov.uk
• or write to: Adult Social Care Customer Relations Team, Surrey County Council, Millmead House, Millmead, Guildford, Surrey, GU2 4BB. Tel: 01483 518300
• or call Adult Social Care's advice line via Surrey's Contact Centre on 0300 200 1005.

What can I expect if I've made a complaint?

Your complaint should be acknowledged within 3 working days outlining the process and timeframe.

They will work with you to resolve your complaint. Once they have looked into your complaint they will let you know their response and what action may have been taken. Their aim is to put matters right as quickly as possible and respond within 20 working days.

If you remain dissatisfied you have the right to ask the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman. Visit The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman website for further information.