South Lanarkshire Council and you

This information is for anyone who uses the services of South Lanarkshire Council.

What you can expect from the council

• We are committed to ensuring that you receive a quality service at all times, delivered by friendly employees who provide the highest standard of customer service 
• We aim to answer all calls as quickly as possible. Calls made to direct numbers aim to be answered within 5 rings. Calls made to our Contact Centres will be placed in a queue to be answered by the next available team member.  When we answer a call, we will tell you the name of the service you have called and the person you are speaking to 
• We will respond to all telephone call messages by the end of the next working day 
• We will always have staff at our reception points, and make initial contact with you within 10 minutes of your arrival, and advise of any waiting times 
• We will always wear photographic identification which you can ask to inspect 
• We will send you a full reply to any correspondence in Plain English within 10 working days, or keep you informed of progress if we cannot meet this timescale 
• Freedom of Information enquiries and Data Protection complaints have their own timescales 

What we can expect from you

• Keep your appointments 
• If you have an appointment with us, we will ask you to be on time, or let us know if you are going to be late, or if you need to cancel 
• If one of our employees is coming to visit you at home, please make sure you are in at the agreed time 
• If there is anything at all you don't understand about the council and its services, let us know and we will explain it to you. You can bring someone with you or ask us to explain to a friend or relative 
• Make sure we can contact you - tell us if your contact details change or your circumstances change 
• Let us know the best way to contact you either phone, letter or email
• Treat council employees considerately - we are entitled to take appropriate steps to ensure that whilst we treat you with dignity and respect, you also treat our employees in the same way. Abuse of any kind will not be tolerated, and we may record such incidents on our systems and pass details to the police.

Making a complaint

You can make your complaint online at Making your complaint - South Lanarkshire Council

You can also make your complaint to the Resource or Service you have been dealing with by contacting our Customer Contact Centre by phoning 0303 123 1015 to make an appointment or in writing to South Lanarkshire Council, 45 John Street, Blantyre, Glasgow, G72 0JG. 

We have a two stage complaint process. 

At Stage 1, we aim to resolve your complaint within five working days. If you are not satisfied with your response, you can ask us to consider your complaint again. 

At Stage 2, we will acknowledge your complaint within three working days and aim to resolve it within 20 working days. We will look to see why you were not satisfied with our first response or may consider your complaint immediately at Stage 2 if it is complex or needs more detailed investigation.

If, after receiving our final decision on your complaint, you remain dissatisfied, you can ask the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO) to review this. We will tell you how to this when we send you our final decision. Further information is available on the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman page. 

How we make sure out standards are met

All our services monitor their performance against the customer service standards and our council standards. Public performance reports on complaints and local monitoring of standards are presented to the council's senior managers at committee. 

Asking your opinion

We welcome feedback and will consult regularly with our customers, potential customers, employees and partners.  Information from consultation will help inform service improvements. 

We publish details of consultations together with details of improvements we make as a result of customer feedback.