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Find out about changes to our services and Christmas opening times on our Festive information page. To find out when your bin will be collected over the festive period, visit Changes to County Durham bin collections at Christmas.

Due to maintenance, the following systems will be unavailable from 11.45am on Tuesday 24 December until 8.00am on Thursday 2 January: our online Council Tax, business rates and housing benefit services, and our welfare assistance form. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

Make a complaint


We are committed to putting our customers first. However, if you are unhappy with any of our services, this page tells you how to make a complaint so we can do our best to put it right for you.

What information we need when you make a complaint

Please include:

  • the service and /or person you are concerned about
  • the date, time and location of the problem and the effect this may have had on you or others
  • what you expected to happen
  • your name, address and contact details
  • any other information you think may help us to investigate your concerns

What happens with your complaint

If we can not resolve it immediately we will:

  • acknowledge receipt of your complaint within two working days
  • give you a complaint reference number
  • let you know how long we think it will take to respond to your complaint
  • investigate and provide you with a response

What happens if you are unhappy with our response

If you are unhappy with our response to your complaint, we will consider an independent investigation by our complaints team. If we believe there is no value in an independent investigation then you will be advised to contact the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGO). 

What is not a complaint

There are some situations that are not dealt with under the complaints process:

Services with a different complaint process

To make a complaint about other services, please use the specific information below:

Complaints about council staff

If your complaint relates to the conduct of one of our staff, we will deal with this with appropriate advice from our Human Resources and Internal Audit teams. We will then carry out a thorough investigation of the issues raised. However, where this is progressed through our disciplinary policy details must remain confidential between us and the staff member and so we may not always be able to share details of the outcome with you.



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