Useful Information

Complaints Procedure

The Local Government Staff Commission for Northern Ireland aims to provide an effective and efficient service to all its customers.

If on occasions, the service is not as you would expect, we  would like to know about it.

Our complaints procedure has 2 stages.

Stage 1: Frontline Response 

We aim to respond to complaints quickly.  On receipt of your complaint, it will be acknowledged. We aim to resolve your complaint within 5 working days. If the matter cannot be resolved within the 5 working days, you will be advised of this and given a target date by which you will receive a full response.

If you are not satisfied with the response we give at stage 1, we will tell you what to do next.  If you choose to, you can take your complaint to stage 2.  You must normally ask us to consider at stage 2 either:

• Within 6 months of the event, you want to complain about or finding out that you have a reason to complain;
• Within 2 months of receiving your stage 1 response from us (if this is later).

Stage 2:  Investigation

Stage 2 deals with 2 types of complaint:  those that have not been resolved at stage 1 and those that clearly require in-dept investigation, and so are handled at this stage.  If you do not wish your complaint to be handled at stage 1, you can ask us to handle it at stage 2 instead.

When using Stage 2:

• We will acknowledge receipt of your complaint within 3 working days.
• We will confirm our understanding and the complaint we will investigate and what outcome you are looking for.
• We will tr to resolve your complaint where we can (in some cases we may suggest using an alternative complaint resolution approach, such as mediation).
• Where we cannot resolve your complaint, we will give you a response as soon as possible normally within 20 working days.
• If our investigation will take longer than 20 working days, we will tell you.  We will keep you updated on progress.

What if I am not satisfied with the response?

After we have given you our final decision if you are still dissatisfied with our decision or the way we dealt with your complaint, you can ask the Northern Ireland Public Services Ombudsman (NIPSO) to review it.

NIPSO is an independent organisation that investigates complaints across the public sector.  The service provided by NIPSO is free.

NIPSO generally expects complaints to be brought to it within 6 months from us informing you that the complaints handling procedure is complete and of your right to refer your complaint to NIPSO.  You will need to provide details of your complaint and a copy of our final response.

NIPSO's contact details are:

N.I. Public Services Ombudsman
Progressive House
33 Wellington Place
Belfast
BT1 6HN
Tel: 028 9023 3821

Web: www.nipso.org.uk
Email: nipso@nipso.org.uk

If NIPSO cannot investigate your complaint and your complaint requires an alternative route for independent review, NIPSO will tell you and provide you with the relevant contact details.

NIPSO will expect complainants to exhaust the Commission's procedure before carrying out any investigations.

Should you wish to make a complaint to the Commission, please refer to our Complaints Handling Procedure Guide for further guidance.