Complaints

Your experience with Council is important to us and we encourage you to contact us if you have a complaint or would like to discuss a decision or process.

A complaint to Council can be either verbal or written.

You can submit a complaint about:

  • the quality of an action taken, decision made or service provided by Council staff or a Council contractor
  • a delay by Council staff or a Council contractor in taking an action, making a decision or delivering a service
  • a policy or decision made by the Council, Council staff or a Council  contractor.

What is not a complaint?

The following items (and more) can be reported via Report an issue:

  • lodge an application (i.e. planning, building, septic tank)
  • a street tree needing a trim or branches down after a storm
  • potholes
  • dumped rubbish
  • missed/damaged bin
  • illegally parked cars
  • graffiti
  • damaged footpath

How to submit a complaint

Need help making a complaint?

If you require support to make a complaint, contact us. We have a range of services available to assist you, including interpreters and audio assistance.

What happens next?

Where possible, we will attempt to resolve your complaint at the time you first contact us.

This may include:

  • raising a request for service for action
  • providing advice or information to you, and/or
  • providing advice on why we may not take action on your complaint and where possible, inform you about other options (i.e. responsibility of  another agency or a police matter).

It may not be possible to resolve your complaint when you first contact us. Your complaint may require further investigation and it will be referred to the relevant Council officer/team to investigate. We will then provide details of who you can contact about the investigation.

Assessment

If your complaint needs further consideration, an assessment is carried out by a Council officer/team with specialist expertise. Additional information is gathered and an evidence-based decision is made. We will communicate with you throughout the assessment and provide a written outcome that explains our decision.

We aim to complete assessments within 28 working days and will let you know if we require more time. If further time is required, you will be updated at least once per month about the progress of the complaint until the assessment is completed.

Internal review

If you believe the Council officer/team have made the wrong decision in an assessment or are dissatisfied in how we responded to your complaint, you can request an internal review. The review will be conducted by a senior Council officer who has not had any prior involvement with your complaint.

We will inform you of the internal review outcome and explain our reasons within 28 working days of receiving the request and will let you know if we require more time. If further time is required, you will be updated at least once per month about the progress of the internal review until it is completed.

To request an internal review, send your request to:

When requesting an internal review:

  • advise why you believe the initial decision in incorrect; and
  • supply any additional information or evidence (including images) that you believe will be important to the review.

External Review

If you remain dissatisfied with a decision made or the processes followed by the Council officer/team, you can seek an external review. Complaints are escalated to external bodies that can deal with different types of complaints about Council

Council will contribute by participating in, and cooperating with the external review process.

Further details can be found at Victorian Ombudsman

Complaints and unreasonable behaviour

Council officers will do their best to resolve your complaint, but sometimes there are times this cannot occur regardless of our efforts.

To assist us with challenging and unreasonable behaviours we apply the Victorian Ombudsman's Framework 2020-2024 to assist us and provide clarity to you on how we will manage your complaint.

Unfortunately, this could lead to limiting a resident’s access to services depending on the situation. If this is likely to occur we will advise you. You will have the right to request a review of your decision.

Further details can be found at Victorian Ombudsman - Good Practice Guides

Related policies, legislation and reference sources

Council policies

Legislation

Other resources

There are also a range of others ways you can share feedback, compliments or suggestions.

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