Comments, compliments, complaints and questions

Do you have a complaint, question, comment or compliment about Knowsley Council?

Fill in our online form to provide useful feedback and help us to improve what we do. 

When you make a complaint these are the standards you can expect

  • We will respond to any complaint with a full explanation
  • If we do make a mistake we aim to put it right as quickly as possible
  • We will apologise if we’ve made a mistake
  • We will provide a contact name and telephone number if you wish to contact us again
  • We will be fair and honest; and
  • We will treat you with dignity, respect and courtesy 

We expect you to:

  • Treat all our staff with respect. If you do not we will refuse to deal with your enquiry until your behaviour is acceptable
  • Provide us with all of the information we need to help you; and
  • Tell us what you would like us to do to resolve your complaint.

If you are not happy with one of our services, please speak to a member of staff or a manager on duty who will look into the problem and do their best to sort it out for you.

If you are not satisfied with the outcome you can make a formal complaint.

Some services provided by the Council have their own complaint procedures:

Complaints or comments relating to Knowsley Housing Trust (KHT) should be sent to them. They have their own complaints form called ‘Let us Know’ which is available from KHT offices, by telephone on 0151 290 7000 or email
enquiries@k-h-t.org.uk.

Complaints and investigations against councillors and members

As a resident, you have the right to expect high standards of behaviour and conduct from the councillors who represent you.  If you have a complaint about the behaviour of an elected or co-opted member, you must put it in writing to the Standards Committee.

The committee can only consider complaints about the behaviour of members if they relate to standards of behaviour detailed in the Members’ Code of Conduct.


Code of Conduct

When you consider whether your elected representative is upholding the standards of behaviour expected of them, you should refer to the Code of Conduct.

The code is underpinned by the Ten General Principles of Public Life:

  • Selflessness
  • Honesty and integrity
  • Objectivity
  • Accountability
  • Openness
  • Personal judgement
  • Respect for others
  • Duty to uphold the Law
  • Stewardship
  • Leadership

Read further advice and guidance on the complaints procedure or contact the Deputy Monitoring Officer on 0151 443 3609 for more information.

For all other complaints follow the steps below:

Stage 1 - complaints
There are a number of ways you can make a formal complaint.

  • Email your complaint by completing our online form
  • Write to us or fill in a 'Have Your Say' form - if you need assistance to fill in the form, our staff will be pleased to help you.  You can pick this form up from any council building offering services to the public.
  • Telephone us on 0151 443 4031
  • Visit one of our One Stop Shops
  • If you are a text phone user please call us on 0151 443 4749
  • You may wish to contact your local councillor to assist you in making a complaint.  You can telephone Democratic Services on 0151 443 3502 for more information about councillors.

What happens next?
We will write to you within 3 working days to let you know we have received your complaint. This will include the name and telephone number of the contact officer who will be helping you. We will investigate and send a response within 10 working days. If we cannot complete a full investigation in this time we will send you a letter to explain why and let you know the date when we will send the final reply.

If you are not happy with our reply you can contact us again to ask us to review your complaint by a Head of Service at stage 2. However we reserve the right not to take the matter forward to stage 2 if further investigation will not alter the outcome.

Stage 2 - final review by the Head of Service
If you have told us you are not happy with our first reply and the Head of Service is going to review your complaint we will acknowledge this within 3 working days.

We will send a response within 10 working days. If we cannot complete a full investigation in this time, we will send you a letter to explain why and let you know the date when we will send the final reply.

This is the final step in our complaints procedure.

The Local Government Ombudsman

The Local Government Ombudsman is an independent body who investigates complaints about councils. However the ombudsman will usually only investigate once the council has had the chance to investigate the complaint through its own complaints procedure.

There are a number of ways you can contact the Local Government Ombudsman:

  • Pick up a leaflet from one of our One Stop Shops
  • Phone 0151 443 4031 for a leaflet
  • Write to the Local Government Ombudsman at PO Box 4771, Coventry CV4 0EH
  • Telephone 0845 602 1983 or 0300 061 0614
  • By fax on 024 7682 0001
  • Visit their website