Every council will get complaints, and how it handles them is a test of its governance. Most councils adopt the model complaints procedure promoted by NALC, which gives residents a fair, consistent route — and protects the council from accusations of handling things arbitrarily. The key is knowing which complaints go down which route, because several don’t belong in the general procedure at all.

What the general procedure covers

The council’s complaints procedure deals with complaints about the council’s administration or its procedures — the way a service was delivered, a decision was handled, or the council conducted itself. A typical procedure:

  1. Encourages informal resolution first, with the clerk.
  2. If unresolved, allows a formal written complaint.
  3. Has the complaint considered by the council (or a committee), with the complainant able to make representations.
  4. Notifies the complainant of the outcome in writing.

Decisions on complaints are usually taken with the press and public excluded, but the outcome is reported in open session.

The complaints that go elsewhere

This is where councils trip up. Several kinds of complaint have their own statutory routes and must not go through the general procedure:

  • Conduct of a councillor → the monitoring officer at the principal authority (district/unitary), under the code of conduct.
  • A member of staff (grievance or conduct) → the council’s employment / HR procedures, in private.
  • Financial irregularity → may engage the external auditor and electors’ rights.
  • Data protection / a SAR → the ICO route and your data-protection duties.
  • Criminal matters → the police.

Routing a complaint correctly at the start saves a great deal of trouble later.

Keep a clean record

Whatever the route, complaints need to be logged, tracked and resolved with a clear record of what was decided and when — both to be fair to the complainant and to evidence good governance at audit.

How Town Desk handles this

In Town Desk a complaint is logged under Governance → Complaints as a tracked case (with a COMP- reference), carrying a status and a full timeline of what happened and when, with the outcome kept on the record. Unlike FOI and DSAR cases it carries no statutory clock — which is correct. Town Desk handles the council’s own complaints; conduct complaints about a councillor still go to the monitoring officer, as above.

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General information for UK town & parish councils, not legal advice. See the current NALC model complaints procedure and your principal authority’s monitoring officer for conduct matters.