Make a complaint

A service request

We define a Service Request as a request for the Council’s assistance with an issue or problem faced by a customer in an area falling within the Council’s responsibility.

Requests for the Council’s assistance with an issue or problem faced by a customer in an area falling within the Council’s responsibility are service requests, not complaints.

We encourage all Council staff to work with customers to resolve any service issues as service requests in the first instance. This normally enables a quicker resolution than the Council’s formal complaints process.

For example, if you report a missed bin, we will treat this as a service request, not a complaint.

We will then investigate and either:

1. collect the bin within 48 hours
2. let you know why it wasn't collected

A service request may, however, result in a complaint if we are unable to resolve the issue.

Waste Services

Except in extraordinary circumstances, the Council will treat any feedback about waste issues as a service request.

A complaint

If the issue is not resolved after 3 service requests, the Council will escalate the matter to Stage 1 of its complaints process on the request of the customer, if not more than 3 months have passed since the date of the first service request.

The Council may determine that a formal complaint should be dealt with as a service request, and in this instance will advise the customer accordingly.

How to Make a Service Request

There are a number of services you can request through our website.

Some of the most common service requests can be found at:

Report a missed bin

Pay a penalty charge notice

Noise, light, and other nuisance

Tunbridge Wells Borough Council has a two stage complaints procedure for services, and a one stage complaints procedure for data protection complaints.

The Council may determine that a formal complaint should be dealt with as a service request, and in this instance will advise the customer accordingly.

Using AI

We understand that artificial intelligence software can assist some customers in making complaints, and we welcome this where it is genuinely helpful to the process. If, however, we feel your complaint is excessively long or cannot fairly be interpreted then we will reject your complaint and ask you to resubmit the information in a more concise form.

Stage 1

1. You submit your complaint.
2. We may resolve service issues on first contact as service requests.    If a customer asks us to, or we deem it necessary, we will deal with complaints at Stage 1 of our Complaints Procedure.
3. Once submitted, we will acknowledge receipt of any complaint within five working days of receipt.
4. Except in exceptional circumstances, we will not consider further information about the complaint once we have acknowledged receipt.
5. The relevant Head of Service will investigate your complaint and will aim to respond within 10 working days of the acknowledgement.  This is our official response to your complaint. If your complaint is more complex or we need more time to investigate and gather information we will let you know.
6. If you are unhappy with the response to your complaint at Stage 1 you may request a review of your complaint by the Chief Executive at Stage 2.

Stage 2

If you are dissatisfied with the Council’s response at Stage 1, you may contact the Performance and Governance Team to request an independent investigation.

1. If you would like to escalate your complaint to Stage 2 of the process, you must explain why you want to take the matter further.  Please note that we will only consider new information and won't respond to the same things we've already responded to at Stage 1. Please be sure to include all information which is materially significant in your explanation.  Failure may mean that we cannot take such information into account when answering your Stage 2 complaint.
2. We will acknowledge Stage 2 requests within five working days of receipt.
3. Except in exceptional circumstances, we will not consider further information about the complaint once we have acknowledged receipt.
4. Your complaint will be investigated by the Performance and Governance team.  It will then be reviewed by the Chief Executive or one of the Council’s Directors.
5. The Chief Executive (or one of his directors) will aim to respond to your Stage 2 complaint within 20 working days of the acknowledgement.  If your complaint is more complex or we need more time to investigate and gather information we will let you know.

What happens next?

If you have been through stage 1 and stage 2 and we haven’t managed to resolve your complaint, you can contact the Local Government Ombudsman.

These complaints are treated differently. For advice and information relating to complaints about councillors please visit our councillor code of conduct page.

If you are unhappy with the way in which we have dealt with your request or disagree with the decision, you can request a review by the Council’s Monitoring Officer (which is separate from our complaints procedure).

The Monitoring Officer (or someone on their behalf) will acknowledge your request within five working days of receipt of the request and will respond within 20 working days.  This may be extended to 40 working days in some circumstances.

You have the right to complain to us if you consider that we have infringed data protection legislation because of the way we’ve handled your personal data.  You can follow the procedure on how to submit a complaint by visiting our website, Complaints, comments and compliments - MyTWBC - Feedback type or email dataprotection@tunbridgewells.gov.uk.

The Data Protection Officer (or someone on their behalf) will acknowledge your complaint within five working days of receiving it.  We may extend this to 20 working days in some circumstances.

We may require you to verify your identity before we can respond.  Once we have verified your identity, the Data Protection Officer will respond within 20 working days of the acknowledgement or let you know if we need more time to investigate your complaint.

If you remain dissatisfied, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s office:

Telephone: 0303 123 1113

Information Commissioner's Office website

If you would like any further information about our complaint handling process, please refer to our Complaints Policy and Procedure.