Making a complaint

It’s easier and quicker to first raise a complaint directly with the service involved. You should speak to a member of staff as soon as possible before making a formal complaint.

The formal complaint process

• Let us know your complaint.
• We acknowledge your complaint within three working days and let you know who is dealing with it.
• We discuss the complaint with you to try and understand why you are not happy and what you want to happen after. We will agree a timescale.

Contact Details: Complaints.SOCS@leeds.gov.uk 

We know that we don’t always get it right first time and we welcome feedback on our services so that we can get it right first time, more often.

If you provide us with any feedback then we will respond to you, even if it is only to thank you for going to the trouble. Of course, if you ask us questions then we will do our best to give you the answers.

If you’re unhappy about a service that you have received then it is your right to complain. It is better to complain than to say nothing because it gives us a chance to make changes and put things right. We will always take your complaints seriously, however if a formal appeal process exists, then this will be used to address your concerns.

The complaints to children's services guide takes you through the ways you can make a formal complaint. This could be a complaint about children’s social care, early years and youth services or any of the education services that we provide.

Schools are self governing and so you should usually contact them directly in the first instance.

Contact Details: complaints.children@leeds.gov.uk 

Schools are self-governing and so you should usually contact them directly in the first instance to resolve any concerns. If you do wish to make a complaint all schools have procedures to deal with their complaints, usually available online or by request to the school. 

Leeds City Council have a series of promises that we make to all young people in care.

The promise

We promise to:

• help and support you to stay safe and have a healthy lifestyle.
• involve you in all decisions about your life.
• have high aspirations for you and encourage you to reach your full potential.
• support you throughout your education and to plan for the future.
• listen and make sure you know what will happen next.
• celebrate your achievements.
• make sure you have lots of different people to support you.
• help you have new experiences and develop your own interests.
• We developed these promises with the Have a Voice Council – a group of young people in care in Leeds who work to improve how we look after you.
• Your social worker should have already shared the promise card with you and helped you to understand it. If they haven't done this or you want to know more, please ask them.

Let us know if we’re keeping our promises

We want you to tell us how we're doing at keeping our promises to you. Let us know if:

• we have not kept any of our promises to you
• you’re unhappy with the support we’ve given you
• someone has worked hard to support you and you think they should be recognised and praised

Contact details: 

• Email: telluswecare@leeds.gov.uk 
• Tel: 0113 378 5111