The Adaptations Agency aims to provide a high quality service in the delivery of Disabled Facilities Grants to our clients in Leeds. However, if you are unhappy with any aspect of the service we provide, please let us know straight away.
As soon as we know there is a problem we can take action to sort things out. Your feed back, whether it is in the form of a complaint, compliment or comment, is important as it helps us to develop and improve the service we provide.
On the completion of your adaptation, our surveyor will leave with you one of our customer questionnaires and a stamped addressed envelope. Please take the time to complete this short form as your comments good and bad are recorded and evaluated to identify if any subsequent action is required.
The nature of your communication to the Agency should fall into one of the following categories and can be accessed directly via one of the links below:
- General enquiries and requests for service
- Formal complaints
- Appeals against nature or extent of works proposed
- Compliments or comments
You may also wish to check the Useful Contacts page which includes details of how to contact the Local Government Ombudsman
1. General enquiries and requests for service
For general enquiries concerning the delivery process of your grant, queries concerning the contractors and their work or any other general issues, please either ring the helpdesk or contact the Agency using any of the contact points listed below.
Note
In general, communications will be answered in the same format as they are received by the Agency.
Following your enquiry, an investigation will take place and an Agency Officer will reply with a substantive response within 15 working days. However, when issues are of a more pressing nature they will be dealt with accordingly and will be appropriate and proportional to the nature of the complaint.
2. Formal complaints
If you feel you have raised issues with the Agency and you still feel you are dissatisfied with the standard of service, actions taken or indeed actions not taken, you may wish to make a formal complaint.
A formal complaint would be appropriate if
- You feel the conduct of our staff or contractors have caused offence.
- You feel the quality of service provided has been unsatisfactory.
- You feel you have been discriminated against or treated unfairly.
You can obtain a formal complaint form from the Agency or from the sources list on Useful Contacts.
The formal complaints procedure has a number of stages and will initiate a full and detailed investigation of your concerns. On receipt of your complaint the Council will issue an acknowledgement and indicate the timescale for receipt of your substantive reply.
If you are unhappy with this response, the complaint passes to stage 2 for further investigation by an impartial senior officer to deliver the Council’s final response to your complaint. If you remain dissatisfied with this final response you can contact the Local Government Ombudsman’s (LGO) Office to request that your complaint is looked at independently. You should be aware that the LGO will not investigate your complaint unless you have passed through the Council’s formal complaint procedure first.
3. Appeals against nature and extent of works proposed
For major adaptations, the design of the proposed schemes can become involved and complex. Staff from Occupational Therapy and the Agency will discuss proposals with you based upon the Occupational Therapist’s (OT) assessment of need, together with the Government guidelines and Council’s policy for eligible works with relation to your dwelling. In some of these cases the officers will initiate a “housing options” appraisal that will help all parties to agree on the best course of action at your property.
It is hoped that these measures ensure that all parties can reach an agreed scheme of works that can proceed forward. However, if you feel that the Council’s proposed adaptation does not suitably meet the needs of the disabled person you may wish to submit your complaint to the Council’s Appeal Panel that adjudicates on such cases.
Important If you wish to appeal against the Council’s proposed scheme you should contact the Adaptation Agency or your OT and inform them of this, preferably in writing, so the case can be timetabled for a hearing.
On registering your intention of appealing the proposed scheme, the relevant officer will be in touch to give you further information of the appeal process with relevant times and dates.
4. Compliments or comments
The Agency is always happy to receive any comments or compliments about the service it provides. If you have been particularly pleased about any aspect of the service or would like to highlight the involvement of any members of Agency staff or our contractors, we are always grateful to hear about this.
All compliments are passed onto the relevant officers and are always appreciated by the staff who receives them.