Our performance

How we have been performing & how to make an appeal or complaint

Customer Service Excellence

The Benefits Service has been successful in achieving the Service Excellence Award for the third time and the Council Tax  team has been successful in achieving this award for the fourth time. This award recognises our ongoing commitment to customer satisfaction.  The success of this has led to high quality, customer focused service which the people of Middlesbrough have a right to expect.

Customer Charters

Both the Benefits Service and the Revenue section have a customer charter statement that sets out the standard of service you can expect from us and what your responsibilities are. These customer charter statements can be viewed from the 'Downloads' section located to the right hand side of the screen.

Appeals

As part of our performance, we also look at our appeals each month.  An appeal is where you think that we have made a mistake in working out your housing benefit or council tax benefit. You can appeal by asking for a decision to be explained (this can be done over the phone) or ask us to look at the claim again (this must be done in writing). Both of these have to be requested within one month of you receiving a decision letter.

Compliments, complaints and suggestions

Your comments and suggestions are important to us. If you would like to compliment us on our service or have any suggestions on how we may improve the service we provide please let us know by:

• E-mail: housbens@servicemiddlesbrough.org
• Telephone: (01642) 726005
• Fax: (01642) 726970
• Post: Benefit Services, Middlesbrough House, PO Box 98, Corporation Road, Middlesbrough, TS1 2YL.

You can also complete and return the  suggestions and compliments form [171kb].

Complaints

If you have a problem please speak to us first as many difficulties can be cleared up easily. If you are still not satisfied then you can use the complaints procedure.

You can either complain in person, by telephone or in writing. There is a Complaints form available to complete. The form explains the time limits that need to be met at each stage.

The procedure for dealing with your complaint is as follows:

Stage 1: Informal Problem Resolution Stage
The initial investigation will be made by the line manager responsible for the service area you are complaining about.

Stage 2: Formal Investigation Stage
If you are not satisfied with our response at Stage 1 and want to take the matter further, a Senior Manager who is not responsible for your benefit claim will investigate your complaint.

If you remain dissatisfied at the end of Stage 2 and want to take the matter further, you should write to the Complaints Manager, Legal and Democratic Services, PO Box 503, Town Hall, Middlesbrough TS1 9FX, explaining why you are not satisfied with the outcome of the investigation, and outlining what you want the Council to do to resolve the matter.

Ombudsman
The Local Government Ombudsman will not normally consider a complaint until the Council has had an opportunity to consider it under the above three stage procedure.

For information please follow this link to the  Local Government Ombudsman website.